April 22, 2014 Wolf Pack

I was going through some material in the online seminary program this morning and I came across this quote by Elder Wirthlin.  I love the symbolism and I wonder how my testimony would measure up if it were converted to a fire.  Would it be sufficient to save me?  Would it protect my family through the dark night?

I remember Bishop Johnson asking me if I had a burning testimony when I was much younger.  When I said yes, he handed me missionary papers and convinced me to serve a full time mission.  I know I had a testimony before but when I returned it was a candle compared to the bonfire 18 months later.  It was the best thing I ever did next to marrying Paul.


 

“Many years ago, large packs of wolves roamed the countryside in Ukraine, making travel in that part of the world very dangerous. These wolf packs were fearless. They were not intimidated by people nor by any of the weapons available at that time. The only thing that seemed to frighten them was fire. Consequently, travelers who found themselves away from cities developed the common practice of building a large bonfire and keeping it burning through the night. As long as the fire burned brightly, the wolves stayed away. But if it were allowed to burn out and die, the wolves would move in for an attack. Travelers understood that building and maintaining a roaring bonfire was not just a matter of convenience or comfort; it was a matter of survival. (See Mary Pratt Parrish, Ensign, May 1972, p. 25.)

“We do not have to protect ourselves from wolf packs as we travel the road of life today, but, in a spiritual sense, we do face the devious wolves of Satan in the form of temptation, evil, and sin. We live in dangerous times when these ravenous wolves roam the spiritual countryside in search of those who may be weak in faith or feeble in their conviction. … We are all vulnerable to attack. However, we can fortify ourselves with the protection provided by a burning testimony that, like a bonfire, has been built adequately and maintained carefully.

“Unfortunately, some in the Church may believe sincerely that their testimony is a raging bonfire when it really is little more than the faint flickering of a candle. Their faithfulness has more to do with habit than holiness, and their pursuit of personal righteousness almost always takes a back seat to their pursuit of personal interests and pleasure. With such a feeble light of testimony for protection, these travelers on life’s highways are easy prey for the wolves of the adversary”

(“Spiritual Bonfires of Testimony,” Ensign, Nov. 1992, 34).

April 14. 2014 Where to be Happiest?

 Last week I was in Nevada, Utah, Idaho, Utah, Nevada, California.  Everywhere was touched by Spring!  Rexburg, always the last to thaw and manage to hold on to warmer weather was even bright and sunny. I love spring with the first day of spring as my birthday, Easter and that touch of the idea that anything is possible!  Spring is our gift for enduring the winter!  I was delighted to end the week on the temple grounds in Las Angelas.  It is spring break for my college daugther and my daughter just home from her mission and working in a nearby charter school.  It is odd but welcome to have so much noise in our home during the day!

Nevada

Utah

 California









Thought for the day:
 
“When spring came, even the false spring, there were no problems except where to be happiest."
Ernest Hemingway

April 3, 2014 Don't Die with the Music Still in You

President Stolworthy receives recognition from Las Vegas City Council for work that our stake does with a nursing home in our area.  This was yesterday.  I was the photographer (with my new birthday macro lens!).

Thought for the day:

I have watched men filled with potential and grace disengage from the challenging work of building the kingdom of God because they had failed a time or two. These were men of promise who could have been exceptional priesthood holders and servants of God. But because they stumbled and became discouraged, they withdrew from their priesthood commitments and pursued other but less worthy endeavors.

And thus, they go on, living only a shadow of the life they could have led, never rising to the potential that is their birthright. As the poet lamented, these are among those unfortunate souls who “die with [most of] their music [still] in them.”

Elder Uchtdorf quoting Oliver Wendell Holmes

April 1, 2014 The Cellar of My Soul

This weekend was spent in Scouting.  I did an overnight training at Camp Kimball for the upcoming Wood Badge Course and was invited to help with one of the best parts of that program- The Game of Life. I won't do a spoiler here but it is a dynamic, interactive activity.  Anyway, it reminded me of a quote by CS Lewis that I will add below.  I love working in Scouting because the values that are intrinsic in the program are SO needed in the lives of our youth today.  I have so many wonderful opportunities to serve and if there are any blessings involved I hope that my husband Paul gets an equal share for making it possible for me to be the caregiver of our family and a service leader in our community.

My Hero

Father's Day 2012

Mt. Charleston, Nevada

Thought for the Day:

Rats in the Cellar...
Lewis, Magdalen College, Oxford

C. S. Lewis is regarded as perhaps the foremost defender of the Christian faith of the last century. The work he is arguably best known for, Mere Christianity, has had a profound influence upon the lives of many noteworthy people, including Chuck Colson and Tom Monaghan, the founder of Domino's Pizza and formerly the owner of the Detroit Tigers baseball club. Mere Christianity, which was based upon a series of radio broadcasts he delivered over the BBC during between 1941 and 1944, continues to sell millions of copies each year. 

And for all Lewis did to show the reasonableness of "mere" Christian orthodoxy, it often escapes one's notice that he also demonstrated a great grasp of the challenges in living out our faith. Perhaps one of the reasons for Lewis' perennial appeal is that he speaks without using "Christianese," or churchy, religious jargon, to get his point across. One of the clearest examples of this occurs in the chapter of Mere Christianity entitled, "Let's Pretend," where he is describing the arduous task of Christ "being formed in us," about our coming "to have the mind of Christ." He writes that we begin to notice, "besides our sinful acts, our sinfulness; begin to be alarmed not only about what we do, but about what we are." He then gives this example from his own personal life: 

"When I come to my evening prayers and try to reckon up the sins of the day, nine times out of ten the most obvious one is some sin against charity; I have sulked or snapped or sneered or snubbed or stormed. And the excuse that immediately springs to my mind is that the provocation was so sudden and unexpected; I was caught off my guard, I had not time to collect myself. Now that may be an extenuating circumstance as regards those particular acts: they would obviously be worse if they had been deliberate and premeditated. On the other hand, surely what a man does when he is taken off his guard is the best evidence for what sort of man he is? Surely what pops out before the man has time to put on a disguise is the truth? If there are rats in a cellar you are most likely to see them if you go in very suddenly. But the suddenness does not create the rats: it only prevents them from hiding. In the same way the suddenness of the provocation does not make me an ill-tempered man; it only shows me what an ill-tempered man I am. The rats are always there in the cellar, but if you go in shouting and noisily they will have taken cover before you switch on the light. Apparently the rats of resentment and vindictiveness are always there in the cellar of my soul..." 

Lewis here puts his finger on the true essence of genuine righteousness, not simply our deeds, but our very thoughts. Not what just what we do, but who we are. This is closely akin to Jesus' words in the Sermon on the Mount, where He told His audience that, "Unless your righteousness surpasses that of the scribes and Pharisees, you will not enter into Heaven." (Matthew 5:20) And try as we may to live out our lives for God, we know that we are incapable of doing it on our own. Our daily failures, evidences of the rats that reside in the cellar of our souls, are divine reminders that the way to life is through the mercies of God. 

Kathleen Norris, in her excellent Foreword to the current HarperOne edition of Mere Christianity, rightly observes of Lewis' Christianity: "The 'mere' Christianity of C. S. Lewis is not a philosophy or even a theology that may be considered, argued, and put away in a book on a shelf. It is a way of life...The Christianity Lewis espouses is humane, but not easy: it asks us to recognize that the great religious struggle is not fought on a spectacular battleground, but within the ordinary human heart, when every morning we awake and feel the pressures of the day crowding in on us, and we must decide what sort of immortals we wish to be."