Yearning for Greatness

Perhaps it is just the fact that I am now at the dissertation stage, but I just don't feel like I have much to write about right now.  It has been one of those weeks where in evaluating my progress, I just don't seem to feel like I have much to say that is new and worthwhile.  This has left me wondering what is the best way to move past our own mental blocks, the things inside that keep us from progressing and cause us to believe falsehoods about ourselves?  What is it that allowed Shakespeare to turn beautiful phrase after beautiful phrase?  What allowed Beethoven to consistently create beautiful and elevating music?  How is it that Michelangelo's sculptures and frescos each cause us to turn our hearts toward the heavens and contemplate the Divine?  Yes, each of these men was a prodigy in their own respective sphere and the world has created few such men.  Yet I believe that there is within each of us the capacity for genuine and consistent greatness.

Right now I'm not sure that I have the answers as to how we unlock the greatness within us.  Of of a few things, however, I am certain.  I am certain that we are the sons and daughters of a Perfect Being.  He authored the plan of life and salvation, and He details that plan to us in words of beauty and eloquence spoken through His Prophets.  His abilities as an artist created the grandeur of the mountains, the unrelenting beauty of the seas, and the serene vista of a brilliant sunset.  He composed the songs of the birds and the other animals of the forest, whose voices combine with the wind through the trees to create a veritable symphony of nature that even the most talented of musicians is unable to fully replicate.  And we are all His children.

I am certain that He has created us for greatness.  To each of His children, He extends the offer of salvation and the promise of exaltation and fullness to all the faithful.  There is not one of his children that has lived upon this earth or who will yet live upon it who is incapable of receiving "all that the Father hath" through the power of His Son's atonement and through obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel.

I am certain that God believes in our abilities to succeed and rise to this greatness.  While He asks us to believe in Him, surely He believes in us.  No matter how many days we may feel as though we are simply not enough, He believes in us and calls out to us to come "unto a perfect man" and to rise "unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ" (Ephesians 4:13).

I am certain that "man doth not comprehend all the things which the Lord can comprehend" (Mosiah 4:9).  Honestly, there are a lot of days when I am baffled by the thought that God believes in me and believes in my abilities to become as He is.  But here we must trust that He knows more and understands us more deeply than we know and understand ourselves.  There are things we cannot see and principles which we do not yet comprehend that, if combined with the atonement of Christ through faith and repentance, can lift us to greatness and help us to achieve our eternal aims.  But in order to achieve such ends, we must learn to believe.

On days like today, I am grateful for these certainties and I am grateful for the hope of eternal greatness in and through the mercy of our perfect Savior and our Eternal Father.

Brett

Fatherly Care

Brigham Young, Circa 1850

It's hard to believe it has only been a week since I left Utah and returned to Texas.  Somehow, for me, time away from home always seems so much longer than it really is.  I just got out of my first meeting as a member of the Stake Youth Conference Committee, with a responsibility for the pioneer trek in March (March seems like it will be very cold to me personally).  It is a lot of work, but I think it will offer me some opportunities to shape the stories in a way that will help the kids to understand the Pioneers better, emphasizing their important achievements and faith, but also leaving a little room for humanity.  Maybe it is just me, but I enjoy seeing a little bit of their humanity from time to time because I can relate to that humanity better than I can relate to larger than life characters who were free of any flaws.

In thinking about the pioneer trail today, I have thought a lot about Brigham Young's 1848 journey from Winter Quarters to the Salt Lake Valley.  This is a journey that is often obscured by the 1847 vanguard journey to the Valley, but it is a journey which has much to recommend it to us.  Many people do not know that in September of 1847 after exploring the valley, planting crops, and establishing a small settlement in the Salt Lake Valley, Brigham took many members of the vanguard company and rushed back to Winter Quarters, remarkably arriving back there around the first of November.  Why?  Because they had left their wives and families and the main body of the Saints at Winter Quarters.  The vanguard company was, in essence, a small exploring party to search out a new home for the Saints.  Brigham's 1848 company, on the other hand, was a large company of men, women, and children, families intent on moving to the newly established community.

In December of 1847, Brigham reestablished the Church's First Presidency, sensing the importance of the Church having a Prophet and President at its head rather than just being governed by the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, as had happened from 1844 to 1847.  So this 1848 journey was Brigham's first real action as the President of the Church.  Along the trail he consistently reminded the Saints of their need for greater order and obedience, including in things like hunting buffalo.  Some members of the Church disregarded his counsel, not seeing the importance of wisdom in practicing obedience and restraint in something temporal like hunting buffalo.

But even as Brigham pleaded for greater obedience and order among the pioneers, he also showed them an example of what kind of pioneers they were to be.  Later in his life, Benjamin Ashby recalled that Brigham was frequently "the last to leave the camp ground" and always manifested a kind of "fatherly care" upon the other members of the company, and particularly among those at the back of the companies who were struggling with poverty and sickness (Benjamin Ashby, Autobiography, Church History Library).  Brigham remained toward the rear of the company so that he could "pick up such [pioneers] as was left and could not go on for the want of help" (John D. Lee Diary, July 20, 1848).  When people in the companies had oxen or cattle die, it was Brigham Young who came to their aid, giving them one of his own animals to ensure that they would be able to continue to move forward.

This isn't a Brigham Young that we talk about often.  We hear of the gruff Brigham; the man who would and did say just about anything; the man who could chastise fellow saints from the pulpit with vigor and precision.  But we don't usually hear about the fatherly Brigham Young who watched over the saints with paternal care.  And yet, the more I have come to know him, this is Brigham Young for me.  Like the pioneers he led, he was far from perfect.  But so was Joseph Smith; so were Peter, James, and John; so were Moses and Elijah and the other prophets.  Still, like those other worthy Prophets, Brigham Young had the love of God in his heart and it led him to care for the Saints under his leadership with "fatherly care."

May we all learn to be among those who sacrifice our own comforts and peace to care for the needs of those given to our watch care.

Brett

Rescued

I'm back in Texas after a prolonged and enjoyable holiday season.  It was hard to come back after so much time at home with my loved ones, but it is good for me to get back to working on the dissertation.  I'm hoping to write between 2 and 3 chapters this semester, which would be a wonderful thing and would give me a significant start on my project.  I also have to admit that today's high temperature of 75 degrees is fairly nice for the middle of January.

The First Vision

Today in Sunday School I taught a lesson on what we can learn from the scriptures about our Father in Heaven--a topic that probably deserves far more emphasis than a single lesson and a week of study for said lesson.  As I was preparing the lesson, it occurred to me that I needed to spend some time teaching about the most clear, and, for me, moving instance of his appearance to fallen man in the scriptures:  namely, the First Vision.

Traditionally when we talk about what the First Vision teaches us about the Godhead, we emphasize the separate and distinct nature of each member of the Godhead, and the idea that the Father has a body of flesh and bones like the Son.  But as I was preparing this lesson a couple of other things stood out to me about the Father.

The familiar 1838 account of the First Vision reads this way:  "After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God.  I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was seized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak.  Thick darkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.  But exerting all my powers to call upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into despair and abandon myself to destruction . . . just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of light exactly over my head, above the brightness of the sun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me.  It no sooner appeared than I found myself delivered from the enemy which held me bound.  When the light rested upon me, I saw two Personages, whose brightness and glory defy all description, standing above me in the air.  One of them spake unto me, calling me by name and said, pointing to the other--This is My Beloved Son.  Hear Him!"  (JS-H 1:15-17)

As I read this account in preparation for my lesson, I was moved by the account of the Prophet's rescue in this moment of profound need.  Because of the Fall, rescue usually comes in the form of the Son, but in this instance it came in the form of the Father and the Son.  The 1835 account of the First Vision notes that after he had been delivered, the Prophet again "called on the Lord in mighty prayer" and "a pillar of fire appeared above my head, it presently rested down upon me and filled me with joy unspeakable, a personage appeared in the midst, of this pillar a flame which was spread all around, and yet nothing consumed, another personage soon appeard like unto the first, he said unto me thy sins are forgiven thee, he testified unto me that Jesus Christ is the son of God and I saw many angels in this vision" (Joseph Smith, journal, November 11, 1835, Joseph Smith Papers website).

Whether it was the Father or the Son who appeared first is unclear, but the presence and attendant glory of both of these members of the Godhead delivered the boy Prophet in this time of need.  As I considered this truth, that the Father's appearing had rescued this son, I became even more convinced that He is in reality our Father.  Like any good Father, He will rescue his children whenever we find ourselves in danger.  As we call on His name in faith, He will send help, He will send deliverance, He rescue us from the dangers of this world.

I am grateful for the knowledge of the Fatherhood of God.  He has been there for me in every moment when I have needed His help.  I hope that the young men and young women in my Sunday School class will know and believe this sacred truth.

Brett