Spiritual Scientist

Like many latter-day saints, I was taught in the church that the way to know if something is true or not is if it feels right. In talks and lessons I was told that the Holy Ghost speaks with a voice that we feel more than we hear, and so I learned how to "listen with my heart" and to trust my feelings. I believed that I could feel my way back to Heavenly Father. Growing up happy in the gospel as an easygoing and sensitive young boy, I quickly felt that the gospel was true, and that was enough. It was, I suppose, a great way to start learning about faith.

However, by the time I was a teenager, I started having some new feelings. These were confusing feelings, because they went against the teachings of the church, the scriptures, and the covenant path that I was expected to follow. These feelings were sexual attractions towards men. If feelings were really the way back to God, what on earth was I supposed to do with these ones?

I soon found myself at a crossroads between two contradictory feelings:  my love for the church on the one hand, and my desire for a same-sex relationship on the other. Choosing between them was excruciatingly difficult. The two feelings seemed irreconcilable. How could I choose which feeling was right? Finding a way forward meant I had to look for a different path to find truth besides relying solely on my feelings to point the way.

I was just starting seminary when all this happened, and in the scriptures I made a surprising discovery:  they didn't teach me to rely on my feelings. The scriptures did speak about feelings, of course—the "gospel of peace" (Ephesians 6) and the "happy state of those who keep the commandments" (Mosiah 2:41) 'the fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace" (Galatians 5:22) etc. But those feelings corresponded to a confirmation, one that generally comes "after the trial of thy faith." (Ether 12:6) Feelings from the Holy Ghost can be a part of the process of learning truth by faith, but spiritual feelings are not the process itself.

So what is the process?

In the scriptures, I read that God invites me to "prove [Him] now herewith" (Malachi 3:10) and to "experiment on the word" (Alma 32:7) in order to find out for myself "if these things are not true." (Moroni 10:4) The invitation to find spiritual truths sounded not all that different from the scientific method I was learning about in high school.

I began to realize that living by faith is not always the same as following your heart. While expressing and receiving validation for my feelings in healthy ways was and is an important part of my mental health, it is not the way to accurately measure spiritual truths. We are taught that God speaks to us in our "mind and in our heart (D&C 8:2) and both methods are sources of external evidence that go beyond regular and expected human emotions. I read that faith is "the evidence of things that are not seen." (Hebrews.11:1) Faith is the "substance" of my hope, not merely hopeful feelings that come and go. 

In saying this, I don't mean that faith is meant to invalidate our feelings, but to contextualize them, to help us to see ourselves beyond what we may feel at a particular moment. To a teenage boy, all this pointed me to evidences outside of myself, and motivated me to seek for faithful ways to reconcile my testimony with my sexuality. I did not have to choose one over the other. This empowered me at a time when I was trapped in a cycle of crippling fear and anxiety about who I was.

I have now come to believe that we do a disservice when we tell members who are struggling with their faith to simply follow their feelings. What if they deal with depression or anxiety? What if they feel like there is no place for them in the church? What if they feel like Heavenly Father couldn't possibly love them because of something they did? What if they feel not good enough? What if they feel disillusioned when they read criticisms about the church? How do we help each other reconcile feelings when they conflict with the gospel of Jesus Christ?

I believe that we must do better at teaching what faith really is—that it is not a feeling. It is a proactive choice to move forward in the dark, often without a clear witness of what the outcome will be. It is not about requiring or expecting a particular emotion as we do this. Sometimes we feel nothing, or even negative emotions as we move forward in the gospel—at least initially. While we should find ways to work through our feelings, whatever they may be, and seek to validate them as needed, sometimes with the help of a mental health professional, we can and must also learn to separate our mortal, transient feelings from our faith. When spiritual questions arise, as they are bound to do, God's invitation for us is to become a spiritual scientist with Him, and to engage directly with the evidence for ourselves. Like science, questions without answers is how the process of faith begins.

C.S. Lewis wrote that faith is "the art of holding on to things your reason has once accepted, in spite of your changing moods." This is good counsel, especially for me at a time in my life when my feelings were frequently tied to my hormones. My feelings about God and His love for me, or that my church is guided by revelation, or that keeping my covenants is worth it—all of these have fluctuated greatly. The strength of my faith is not measured in my ability to feel blissful about something indefinitely. I am a human being. Even now, sometimes my testimony burns brightly within me and I feel it strongly, and other times it dims down to almost nothing. My feelings can be easily affected by what I read in my social media feed on a particular day, or by the actions or doubts of those close to me. But as I consider the evidence, giving it more weight than I do my unstable feelings and mortal biases, my perspective changes. I go from passive feeler and consumer of faith to an active participant in my own spiritual experiment—changing from an object to be acted upon, to an agent to act. (2 Nephi 2:26)

I believe strongly that science and faith are both evidence based belief systems. The evidence is measured differently of course, with faith being the gathering of "evidence of things not seen"—the kind of things that may end up in a personal journal, as opposed to observable results that may end up in a scientific journal—but they both take us outside of our own bias, attempting to suspend our own preconceived ideas in order to measure the results that come only after rigorous testing. Furthermore, faith and science both invite others to replicate the experiment to determine the validity of the findings.

In both science and faith, evidence is not the same as proof. This is an important distinction, because they can be easily confused. It is neither the intent of science nor religion to prove anything. Anyone looking for proof in either the scientific world or religious one can lose their way in the experiment, and usually end up relying on simplistic narratives, avoidance of difficult questions, and a reliance on prepackaged platitudes and dogmatic certainties. This happens when we fall off either side of faith, as either rigid non-believer or rigid believer.

The underlying cause for demanding proof is always pride, and both disciples and scientists are vulnerable to it. If you refuse to change your mind or your heart in spite of growing evidence, you are no longer participating in the experiment with the humility that both discipleship and scientific research demands.

Nothing is ever settled, and one always recognizes the possibility of human error, but just as a scientist cannot throw away the weight of centuries of scientific evidence to make his own way, neither can the faithful treat lightly the weight of the recorded scriptural evidence from the great spiritual scientists: Moses, Isaiah, Nephi, Joseph Smith, and of course, the teachings of Jesus Christ.  There is unity in their theories and incredible evidence to their works, and to ignore them in order to create one's own theory for living is the spiritual equivalent of dismissing Einstein as irrelevant in order to write your own equations and develop your own theories of moral relativity.

In my experience, when there are contradictions in faith, as there always are, this is an indication there is a need for further testing and experimenting. I have dealt firsthand with many troubling things in the church, and I have grappled with uncertainty and inconsistency for many years. Everyone must address them in their own way as they come up in their own lives. For me, these inconsistencies and contradictions are an invitation to move out of the classroom and into the laboratory. Go to it, Christopher. Try the Lord. See if He delivers on His promises. 

These crises of faith may even be a sign that God believes in you enough to go beyond the theory of the classroom in order to do your own fieldwork. After a long struggle, the moment when we get to shout "Eureka!" for ourselves after grappling with a painful question becomes even more sweet and meaningful than if the answers were handed to us without ever having to engage in the process for ourselves.

The scriptures and living prophets provide us with the evidence we are asked to consider. It is the "evidence of things not seen." It isn't just whether we feel it is true or not. It is a matter of historical record. For example, the Book of Mormon itself is adamant that it is not just a book about feelings. It was extracted as tangible evidence written on gold that God remembers to keep His promises to gather His people. While we can believe or disbelieve the evidence, we cannot discount its existence.

I worry sometimes that many, especially faithful church members, talk about the whole gospel experience as some kind of "feeling" rather than simply accepting faith for what it is: an invitation to engage head on with the spiritual evidence offered to us. Faith is step 1 in the gospel, to study and "experiment on the word. The feelings and witness of the Holy Ghost do not normally come until step 4. This is a cycle that repeats itself with every new hypothesis that arises in our lives.

I also admit to feeling alarmed, even more so lately, that the religious people around me have even gone so far as to make their feelings the measuring stick for scientific claims, and even the key to interpreting current events. There is a reason why church members are frequently duped by baseless nutrition fads, vaccine hesitancy, and conspiracy theories. More than ever before, evidence is losing its importance in our society as we learn to filter it through our feelings and preconceived beliefs, preferring to believe only in the things that resonate best with us and rejecting the rest. Perhaps this is because we have been taught at church to believe that our feelings have more weight than the evidence. But how a person feels about controversial topics such as vaccines, or the presidential election, or a piece of spurious Mormon folklore, church history, or whether the earth is flat or round, is irrelevant. Spiritual truth, but also and especially scientific and historical truth, is ultimately determined by evidence, not by our feelings.

For my part, I take seriously the evidence of the historical record in the scriptures. I have read the witness of those that handled the golden plates and I believe their words have weight that cannot be dismissed. I also have read the written record of my grandparents and other ancestors who have gone before me, men and women who have tested the theories of the gospel against all odds and found them to be good, and wrote about their experiences. I have the monthly witness of people who live in my little neighborhood who get up on fast and testimony meeting to (hopefully) share real evidence from their own lives the truths they have learned in their own spiritual experiments. When my experience contradicts their evidence (which it does more than a few times) I can do my own fieldwork and find out for myself "whether it be from God, or whether [they] speak for [themselves.]" (John 7:17) Sometimes I change my mind, and sometimes I have to wait for others to change theirs.

For me, being gay and a faithful member of the church has been a very tricky experiment. I learned early on that while I do not necessarily need to follow my feelings, they cannot and should not be ignored. My attractions to men have not changed, and likely will not ever change as long as I have a mortal body to feel them with. To be clear, I am not advocating that anyone stuff away their feelings in order to live by faith. These feelings are what make us human, and denying them can lead to very real psychological damage. But, for me, there is always a way to keep my feelings "within the bounds the Lord has set."

By following along in this gospel experiment, I have learned that there is a kind of freedom that comes from "schooling my feelings" rather than letting them take control of my life. I interpret that phrase to mean I can take my feelings to school with me in my discipleship classroom in order to study them. I can be curious about them, let myself feel them without feeling shame, and I read in the scriptures and from the words of living prophets about other similar tests of faith, and see how my "truth" fits into the other truths I am learning about in the gospel. I have discovered some surprising results.

The first finding is that the church, speaking both generally as a culture and also ecclesiastically is, most definitely, not always right. Leaders and even prophets themselves can sometimes go amiss, especially about secular things—things like the age of the earth, the origin of man, or the origin of sexual attractions. We don't believe in infallible prophets, but for some reason we act like we do. 

Instead, I have learned that God will "yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God." That means that incorrect doctrines, beliefs, and traditions will necessarily fall away and be replaced with more revealed truths. I do not have insight on what those changes will be, but I do believe this will be a painful process, and pride exists now in the church as it has at every other time when God has had a people. We cling to false gods and wicked traditions of our fathers as much as any other Israelite nation, and God will teach us, one way or another, how to repent. Refusing to give up these "wicked traditions" will scatter us as it always does, and regrettably it usually ends up hurting the most vulnerable. At times, they have hurt me. The church's policies, and especially the cultural practices in the church about homosexuality, past and present, have sometimes been wrong. There is clear evidence to support that. And so there is no reason to believe that we have it all figured out now.

But I have a growing body of evidence, supported and cross referenced by the literature, that I truly have a resurrected Savior who knows how to succor His people. I have evidence that God does His work of salvation in this church in spite of the imperfect people who run it. I have evidence that the "power of godliness" is manifest in the ordinances of the priesthood. (D&C 84:20) I have the witness of many miracles in my own life that I have recorded and refer to when my feelings try to take me away from my covenants and my Savior. I have a considerable amount of evidence, from my own life and from the records of my ancestors, that keeping temple covenants brings blessings. I have a growing witness that I am truly a son of God, and that I fit into His divine patterns of family even with my same-sex attraction. 

On the other hand, I also have a large body of evidence that not everyone in the LGBT community finds their place in this church. In fact, most do not. Right now, the evidence suggests to me that this is not due to Christ's failure as a shepherd, or due to the lack of faith of latter-day saints with SSA or are transgendered (the faithfulness of our LGBT members who try their hardest to stay is overwhelming) but it is mostly due to our faith communities' lack of charity, our many insensitive cultural practices and teachings, and, regrettably, our persistent, lingering homophobia.

All this is based on my own experience. I recognize that there is enough evidence for another person to arrive at a different conclusion. There is more experimenting to be done. But I think, for now, God is content to leave some things open to interpretation. Too much evidence one way could be taken as proof, and this would remove our need to exercise faith and be tested, and the way we interpret and interact with the evidence often says more about us than it does about the evidence itself. The evidences we choose to ignore or step over in order to support our own ideas can condemn both the believer and non-believer equally well. I also recognize that as a gay man who has chosen to marry and been able to stay committed to his wife and children, I have considerable bias that shows up in my findings.

My feelings, all of them, are still an important part of who I am. I am grateful for the problem that brought me to test my initial hypothesis, which was to find out if a gay person like myself can belong to the body of Christ as much as a straight one. Nothing is proven yet, but I have more evidence now than I did when I started. I also have evidence that the church will need to make adjustments, some of them major ones, in order to make this happen better.

But in the end, Christ's invitation is always for all to "come and see." Come see the bubbling test tubes of a consecrated life, and look into the microscopes of His laboratory for yourself. Take samples from your own soul and bring them to the lab to decode them and decipher and see how they fit into Christ's tapestry of atonement. Read deeply and consistently from the published and peer-reviewed literature of the scriptures, whose authors "delight in plainness." They are written for us to understand. Come fit your story into the greater gospel conversation, and see if it broadens your understanding of eternal truths.

Whether it is same-sex attraction, depression, anxiety, or any other lens that comes with a particular set of feelings that affects the way we see the world, we always need more spiritual scientists. I believe that taking our place as scientists of faith will help us reconcile every valid and human feeling with the gospel of Christ to create a more perfect and inclusive theory of faith, one that will lead us toward greater unity.

There are some clinical trials that seem to test us beyond our mortal limits, but I have personal evidence that we are working under our Savior Jesus Christ, who is the greatest scientist of all, the Creator of the world. He has already worked out for each of us the unique equations in Gethsemane, and He won't give up on any of us until we all get it right. I believe this with all my mind, and also with all my heart.

Hiking after the Fire

The first thing that hits you is the silence. There is no buzzing, no nattering or background chirping. The trees might as well be posts in the ground. Even four years later, they are locked in a silent scream. The experience is inorganic. It could be the moon. It is the silent numbness that comes before the mourning. It is apocalyptic, like the eerie silence after a nuclear bomb, of twisted metal and melted glass.

It is hard to describe the difference between this kind of silence and the one that existed before it, the quiet growing. It is a sound that is felt more than heard. How does one measure the decibels of a thousand inaudible conversations between trees, or the quiet construction sounds of light being framed diligently into lumber? How might you record the sound of a butterfly's wings as it zips from flower to flower in the dappled light of a meadow? Or calculate the silent tension of animals hiding in the thick undergrowth, watching and waiting? All I can say is you notice it when it's gone.

I wander off the path for a while and note that, even now, it is like walking through an ashtray. My son takes considerable joy out of kicking the soot up, and it follows behind us like a mist. The delicious smells of decay and growing, of sharp pine and humus, are replaced with stale memories. All oxygen that flows into our lungs is imported. The air is without satisfaction. The welcome shade of the trees is gone, and we are exposed to the scorching sky.

I think to myself, How impatient, how unyieldingly cruel is a forest fire! I see how it leapt from tree to tree, sparing none, no time to fully consume any of them. It leaves them all behind, humiliated and with their skin still burnt and hanging. It has no regard for centuries of painstaking labor. It is a stone through a stained glass window, an arsonist let loose at an art gallery, a pillager without mercy. It takes so little time, so little effort to undo all that has been done here. Entire ecosystems falter to its destructive power, and the wildlife dwindles. Fireweed rushes in like a uniform to cover the shame of the naked earth that was once teeming with so much diversity. A forest in a fire crumples like a Rembrandt or a van Gogh.

But a forest is not really a piece of art anyway. It is a drama. Every child knows that both failure and redemption is written into the storyline. You can't have a good story without the struggle and the setback. Every villain has their day, every forbidden fruit is eventually eaten, and every child of God will yield to the animal inside them. But with fires so in life, there is always a resolution, however long or painful it might be.

Time is grace, and seeds that lay dormant for years awake to weave new tapestries out of ancient patterns. Saplings rise all around me directly beside the bones of their ancestors, and old things are made new. Nutrients that were locked away in the forest canopy are returning again to the matrix of the soil to give life back to the young. Earth proves her power once more because in a forest there can be no real Armageddon. Only rebirth.

You can always find hope in a forest.

Nevertheless, it has taken me four years to write down the nagging question I have held onto ever since I beheld the aftermath: What if this is all more than metaphor? The Kenow fire in Waterton was caused by chance lightning that fell from the sky, but I still remember how dry it was that year, and how long the clouds held onto the rain. What if the fire wasn't meant to be? What if it was our fault? This year is already so dry. Record breakingly so. Is there a lightning bolt from heaven in store for us? Do fires, floods, earthquakes, wars and rumors of wars, seas heaving themselves beyond their bounds always come as part of a natural cycle? Are we following a natural course? When will my forest fire come?

The whole world feels like kindling now, and all around me I see sparks. We know the world is getting warmer, but even more than this I fear indifference, hubris, greed, and our insane divisions that are more persistent than ever as we retreat more and more to our fortresses. The world is drying up. Our abuses toward the earth, toward each other, could be reaching a point of no return. What happens when we no longer see the forest for the trees, when our collective spirit fades? Will rebellion always be given a second chance? Is it already too late to stop the blazes?

I know I am prone to melodrama, and not everything is as it seems. A fire is, after all, just a fire. Life heals itself. I return home sunburned and filled, hug and kiss my kids who race to meet me at the door, and run for my son a bath. Everything looks like it will be alright. But even here, safe in our fire-insured home, I can picture a lightning storm in a dry space, see it strike in my own dry heart, and I wonder if I am really trained to put out this kind of fire.

Where, When I Languish

 

lan·guish verb

1. 1.

   (of a person or other living thing) lose or lack vitality; grow weak or feeble.
2. 2.

   suffer from being forced to remain in an unpleasant place or situation. (Oxford Dictionary)

Like many people I know, I have been languishing. I have been "lacking vitality, growing weak," and "suffering from being forced to remain in an unpleasant situation."

For the past few weeks I had been coping by finding purpose in one of the few refuges I had left, my garden. Having it all buried in snow, even though not unexpectedly (after all it happens just about every year) feels poetic. Every perennial I have nurtured over the years is left hanging in uncertainty, and now I wonder which ones will withstand the long freeze. I wonder that about other things in my life, as well.

So yeah, this pandemic has got me languishing. It has cancelled many things that made life meaningful for me: family gatherings, making plans for the future, little outings with my kids, vacations. It put a halt to church meetings and forbade me to sit elbow to elbow with people I love and respect, making it hard for me to feel belonging in my community of saints. It even cancelled the temple, which was my monthly lifeline for many years, connecting me to God and my family and giving me perspective and divine strength in my trials. 

For me, isolation is something I don't do well. Every apologetic attempt to gather in order to find strength and connection from loved ones is tainted by guilt, anxiety, and often brings with it less connection and more disconnection—a feeling of division with others who either believe the restrictions are a total conspiracy, or else they are an unbending standard. I have found myself feeling frustrated and angry with people I once respected and loved, both the rigid and the lax, something totally new for me who once saw only good in everyone. It has shone a light on my own surprising lack of charity, and on my own unwillingness to build Zion with people who see things differently from me.

This whole thing—the pandemic, but also the entire political and social landscape of my church and community—has gutted me. Watching setback after setback has filled me with doubt. For my whole life I have been a diehard optimist. I was always cheerful in difficulty. I possessed a curious reserve of faith and hope in even the most difficult situation. I always thought I could do anything. The past few years have tested me in heart wrenching ways, and I have simply come up insufficient. I now have to live with that about myself.

Parenting, of course, has taken me to a new level of Dante's inferno. I don't need to go into details about that, the failures, isolation, and frustrations of parenting in a pandemic. Talk about "being forced to remain in an unpleasant place or situation." My poor kids.

I have learned before about mental illness, specifically depression and anxiety, from close family who battle this kind of thing every day. They are veterans in this feeling of being stuck, this emptiness, this languishing. I feel newfound respect for them. For me, this is a new experience. It sucks.

In the hymn, we sing:

Where, when my aching grows, 

Where when I languish,

Where in my need to know, where can I run?

Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?

Who, who can understand?

He only One.

Lately, I have been wondering what Christ knows about languishing. Does He, a God, really understand about uncertainty, about our mortal limitations and constant "need to know?" Does He understand what it's like to know what you should do, but are unable, for whatever mental and emotional reasons, to actually do it?

I don't know the answer, but I do have enough faith to believe that Christ does understand uncertainty. I believe He faced it in the garden. I believe He continues to languish under the load of our collective uncertainty, as well as our stagnation, sorrow, and sin. I do not believe Christ was an omniscient being when He entered Gethsemane. He does not enter Gethsemane, either His or ours, as the triumphant Son of God, but as a sensitive, anxious, frightened mortal being. The voice I hear as He asked, "O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me" is not one that knows exactly how His trial will end, or how long it was meant to last, or if He could even perform the task at all. In my mind, it was a voice that trembled with bone breaking doubt. That vision of Christ is relatable to me. The record says He fell on His face under the weight of it all. He knows what it is like to be totally alone in that feeling, to have disciples falling asleep at the crucial moment He needed them. He knows what it is like to feel "exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death." (Matthew 26:38-39)

I don't know how much longer this pandemic will last. I don't know how much longer the other garbage my life is throwing at me will go on. And I have learned a bitter truth that some trials in life do not have a foreseeable mortal end. For all I know, they may go on forever.

However, I believe Christ knows about the trials that feel neverending. Christ continues to suffer with us to this day, 2000 years after His Gethsemane. He has yoked Himself to us, even now, treading the winepress alone until every grape is turned to wine, and every dredge from our bitter cup is drunk. I have to believe He knows how to succor His people in their infirmity. (Alma 7)

As I languish "in my Gethsemane," I want to believe that He knows how to "reach me in my reaching." Looking out my window at the snow falling again, I believe that "spring has to come." I don't know what damage this long freeze, metaphorical and literal, will have on us all when it's all over, but I believe life is always strong enough to heal and prevail. I want to believe God will prevail in my life. I want to believe that this languishing must end.

The Equation of Trees

I have been thinking a lot about trees.

Trees are an important part of regulating the earth's gases. Forests are sometimes referred to as the earth's lungs. The process of photosynthesis uses the energy of the sun to release oxygen back into the atmosphere. While all plants do this, forests do this on a tremendously significant scale. Without trees, our earth would be an uninhabitable place for any kind of life.

But that isn't all they do. Not only do they produce life-giving oxygen, but they also capture carbon released by all living things and store it back in their wood. Trees are basically magicians. They literally make wood out of thin air. The vast boreal forests and rainforests capture a significant amount of the earth's carbon. The majority of the stored carbon of earth was originally put into the ground as oil and peat by ancient forests. See? They’re superstars.

Ever since I had to memorize the equation of photosynthesis in High School biology, I was fascinated by it. It read like a miracle. Carbon dioxide plus water, by the power of the sun, creates oxygen and glucose. The two basic things we need for survival. Air and energy. They are trees of life. It just felt ripe with spiritual application.

In the center of the garden stands the tree of life. Our journey to that tree requires a daily dose of spiritual oxygen, the spiritual breath of life. The Holy Ghost. Our journey also requires creating spiritual glucose by cleaning up the inevitable "carbon emissions" we make along the way.

Christ is that tree of life. He has the power to clean up our pollution, and He also has the power to provide us with spiritual oxygen by His Spirit. He is the resurrection and the life. He is the light that makes photosynthesis possible in our own lives. He is the living waters in the equation. He is the glucose, the bread of life. He is every part of the equation of spiritual photosynthesis. He is the equation.

The only thing we need to work on having is chlorophyll. We need to make sure our receptors for light are spread as wide as they can be to the heavens. In a darkening world, we need to stand in holy places where the light can reach us.

I believe we can synthesize a new creature as we come to Him and apply His spiritual equations.

"Have I a Mother in Heaven?"

Zina Diantha Huntington

My great great great grandmother, Zina Diantha Huntington, once asked the prophet Joseph Smith a remarkable question: "Have I a Mother in Heaven?" What she learned from the prophet she shared with her close friend, Eliza R. Snow, which may have influenced her hymn "Oh My Father" that we often sing on Mother's Day because of this one line: "In the heav'ns are parents single? No the thought makes reason stare! Truth is reason, truth eternal tells me I've a Mother there." 

And then we go the rest of the year largely ignoring this huge, earth shattering piece of information. (Not a very genuine way to honor mothers on Mother's Day, in my opinion.)

Now, almost 200 years later, I often wonder: Whatever happened to Her in the restoration?

In my searching, I have come to believe we need a new generation of both men and women who are willing to ask the same question my ancestor once asked: "Have I a Mother in Heaven?" 

To obtain spiritual truth, I believe that God does not often give us answers to questions we are not asking. We cannot passively wait for God to tell us more. We are commanded to seek. The restoration is ongoing and unfolds only as fast as we collectively ask the questions. I believe many members do not ask questions about Her because they believe She is somehow taboo.

For personal reasons, I have had to ask the question my ancestor asked, and while I still have much to learn, I have found enough of an answer to believe that I am indeed the son of Heavenly Parents, Father and Mother. I have both their spiritual DNA deep in my soul. This understanding has guided me to define myself not only as their son, but also shaped my decision to become a husband and father in spite of challenges.

I share here some thoughts and ideas I have wrestled with about Heavenly Mother. I recognize that this topic, for whatever reason, makes some people feel uncomfortable, and to be honest, I struggled whether I should share this at all. But because I feel strongly that the doctrine of a Heavenly Mother needs to be brought up and addressed more openly, I have outlined some of my personal beliefs below.

I emphasize that these are my personal beliefs, and some of them may resonate with you while others may contradict your own feelings. That is okay. I believe getting to know God, both Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother, is a process we must each go through for ourselves, but I also believe we can learn from each other as we respectfully share insights along the way.

*******

1. Heavenly Mother is not too sacred to talk about, any more than Heavenly Father is too sacred to talk about. She is not fragile. She is not someone who needs our protection. She has the same might, power, knowledge, involvement, and love that our Father in Heaven does. I believe we can talk about Her as openly and as reverently as we do our Heavenly Father.

2. Worshipping Heavenly Mother is not a sin, and acknowledging that she hears our prayers is not apostasy. I believe Heavenly Mother hears our prayers the same way Heavenly Father does.

3. When we say, "We shouldn't ask about Heavenly Mother because she is not important to our salvation right now," we are also saying that the eternal identity of a woman is not important to us right now. We are saying women's identity is a topic that can only be addressed if it is relational to men. This hurts both men and women.

4. We cannot effectively teach eternal marriage, and then hold up as our celestial model a Single Parent household. We cannot preach equal partnership on earth without preaching equal partnership in heaven.

5. Monogamy is the law of heaven. Polygamy has been authorized on earth at specific, brief times, but only as a test of faith, commanded as an Abrahamic sacrifice to which there is a ram in the thicket. (Even, I believe, for my ancestor Zina.) I do not believe polygamy can be an eternal law because it is harmful to both women and men's development by making a woman's identity secondary to a man's. It makes united, intimate, and creative partnership between husband and wife impossible.

6. Acknowledging Heavenly Mother can help strengthen our doctrine that marriage is between a man and a woman. It also makes us better equipped to battle cultural practices that are misogynist or limiting to women, including ones we have inherited in our own faith tradition, the "wicked traditions of our fathers."

7. Our doctrine is not just that God has a wife. It is that God can't even be God without Her. "Neither is the woman without the man, nor the man without the woman, in the Lord." (1 Corinthians 11:11)

8. Heavenly Mother is not just for girls. Boys need Her, too. Men need to talk about Her as much as women do. We are just as much Her children as women are.

9. Heavenly Father and Heavenly Mother work side by side in the garden. Creation brings men and women together, not divides them into separate spheres. I do not believe the economy of heaven is based on gendered divisions of labor, nor on our current understanding of gender roles. These are a result of the Fall. If we try to frame Her using our current gender constructs, we will likely misunderstand Her.

10. I have heard some explain Heavenly Mother might somehow be the earth, or that She might be the Holy Ghost. I believe She is neither. I believe She has a resurrected body "of flesh and bone, tangible as man's." (D&C 130:22) To deny Her a body is to deny women the promise of a resurrection.

11. Heavenly Mother is not unavailable, too busy, or out on a "spa day." Her apparent absence is our own fault, not Hers. I believe She is as involved in our lives as Heavenly Father is.

12. Understanding Heavenly Mother better will help us to heal the earth as we begin to respect creation more deeply, and find balance between "masculine" and "feminine" ways of knowing. It will heal our lopsided, male-oriented systems of power. It will help us to develop male-female balance inside all of us. This will change the way we interact with the planet, and the way we interact with each other. It will help us to be more chaste.

13. The concept of Heavenly Mother is not new. She was not invented by the feminists. She was worshipped anciently in the Old Testament. She has always been there, though She was regrettably expunged from the scriptural record at various times. This has led to some devastating spiritual consequences. We are still dealing with those consequences in our worship today.

14. It is significant to me that the restoration of the church began in a sacred grove. Anciently, groves of trees were the standard place to worship the Divine Feminine. I believe She was very involved in the Restoration, which also involved a restoration of Her. I believe if She had appeared to Joseph Smith, She would have also called Joseph by name and pointed him to Her Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, the same way Heavenly Father did.

15. Scholars have pointed out that one of the names for Heavenly Mother in the Old Testament is "Wisdom." I find it significant that the restoration began with the scripture "If any of you lack Wisdom, let him ask of God." Today we lack Wisdom. The way to learn more about Her is simply to ask, nothing wavering, and we will receive liberally. (James 1:5)

16. Recognizing Heavenly Mother can help us focus better on the Son, because a son must have two parents. Christ is the only way to the Father, but also to the Mother. We can get to know both the Father and the Mother better by getting to know their Son. In learning about Her, we must never lose focus on Christ.

17. Mary, the mortal mother of Jesus Christ, was the handmaid of Heavenly Mother, not of Heavenly Father. I believe this because scripturally, men don't have handmaids. Their wives do. Mary's role is significant in the plan of redemption, and reminds us of our Mother in Heaven. (See 1 Nephi 11) Christ's commandment on the cross to John to "behold thy mother!" is also for us today.

18. The world is hungry for Her. We should not be ashamed, or hide our unique doctrine about Heavenly Mother in the Church of Jesus Christ. It can, in fact, be a beacon of truth, a bold and refreshing doctrine that could attract many who are earnestly seeking to know more about God.

"Goddess with Short Hair," by J. Kirk Richards

Nephi's Sisters

The Book of Mormon is written for our time. It teaches us about the pride cycle, the Zoramites' contempt for the poor, the Gadianton robbers; it shows us how social divisions, both economic and racial, contributed to a civilization's downfall. All these principles are well taught in our manuals and classes and have been incorporated into our narrative of gospel understanding.

But what if all those things were just symptoms of a much more fundamental problem going on in the Book of Mormon? What if the seeds of the Nephite's downfall were planted much earlier, before Lehi's family even arrived to the promised land? No, I am not referring to the friction and eventual split between Laman and Nephi. I believe the Nephite story is less about the generational effects of quarrelling brothers and more about the long-term social impact of an entire nation that persistently disregarded their sisters.

The Book of Mormon is, at its heart, the story of a family. We are introduced to a prophet named Lehi through his vision of the destruction of Jerusalem and accompanying theophany, but his main function in the narrative is that of father, traveling to the promised land with his wife and bickering sons. It really catches us off guard when we read in 2nd Nephi, long after the dramatic story of the family's journey in the wilderness is told, in some offhand comment nonetheless, that there were sisters.

With ample opportunity to name them, Nephi instead introduces his family this way: "And [Lehi] did travel in the wilderness with his family, which consisted of my mother, Sariah, and my elder brothers, who were Laman, Lemuel, and Sam."

Why does Nephi not think it is any more important to give us the names of Lehi's daughters than to record for us the names of Lehi's camels? What is the lesson for us in the Book of Mormon about women?

Over and over again, Nephite women are conspicuously missing. Overlooked. Forgotten. I mean, Nephi and his family are halfway down the road to the promised land before they suddenly remember that they need wives, the way a person might remember halfway down the highway that they forgot to pack their toothbrush.

I am no expert in ancient civilizations, but I would wager that Nephi was no less thoughtful and inclusive towards women than any other man in 600B.C. Context is everything in this story and, even among God's covenant people, Nephi was just probably functioning in the constructs of his ancient society. It probably does us no good at all to judge him harshly and according to our 21st century sensibilities. But some of us may be left wondering, "If a prophet, the mouthpiece of God, can't be inclusive towards women in the scripture, who on earth can?"

Well in 2021, we all can.

Dr. Joseph Spencer, a professor of philosophy and ancient scripture at BYU, suggests an interpretation from Jacob 2 that turned the Book of Mormon completely on its head for me. I borrow heavily from his presentation here, and from a chapter in his book from Neal A. Maxwell Institute here.

He suggests that we have good reason to believe that Lehi was trying to introduce to his sons a social model of gender that was different from Jerusalem society. It could be that he recognized the injustice and abuse against women in his society, and was inspired of God to create a new society in a new land. Jacob gives us these insights into the teachings of Lehi:

For if I will, saith the Lord of Hosts, raise up seed unto me, I will command my people; otherwise they shall hearken unto these things. For behold, I, the Lord, have seen the sorrow, and heard the mourning of the daughters of my people in the land of Jerusalem, yea, and in all the lands of my people, because of the wickedness and abominations of their husbands. And I will not suffer, saith the Lord of Hosts, that the cries of the fair daughters of this people, which I have led out of the land of Jerusalem, shall come up unto me against the men of my people, saith the Lord of Hosts. (Jacob 2:30-32)

Behold, the Lamanites your brethren...are more righteous than you; for they have not forgotten the commandment of the Lord, which was given unto our father—that they should have save it were one wife, and concubines they should have none, and there should not be whoredoms committed among them. And now, this commandment they observe to keep; wherefore, because of this observance, in keeping this commandment, the Lord God will not destroy them, but will be merciful unto them; and one day they shall become a blessed people. Behold, their husbands love their wives, and their wives love their husbands; and their husbands and their wives love their children. (Jacob 3:5-7)

And now behold, my brethren, ye know that these commandments were given to our father, Lehi; wherefore, ye have known them before; and ye have come unto great condemnation; for ye have done these things which ye ought not to have done. (Jacob 2:34)

The life of this particular remnant of Israel in the promised land was meant to be apart from the wicked traditions of their fathers, to become a society where women were no longer abused, excluded, or considered property—where husbands loved their wives and where monogamy was the rule. God separated Lehi and his family with a commandment that involved gender equality.

And thus, the rest of the Book of Mormon could be read through the lens of this question: How did they do?

Short answer: not good. Quite terrible, in fact.

Missing Women and the Downfall of the Nephites

Sariah is the only non-Lamanite woman who speaks in the first person, or is even mentioned, in the Book of Mormon. She is the wife of one prophet, and mother of another. She probably felt keenly the restraints put on her in this band of boys who seem to blunder along, forgetting all kinds of things and obviously not including her in the decision making process, having to backtrack needlessly. I am sure she sighed the way a mother does when she is halfway into town and her child suddenly announces he forgot to put on his shoes. In this position, waiting for her sons to return with the brass plates and worried that they might have died, she murmurs against her husband. "Behold, thou hast led us forth from the land of our inheritance, and my sons are no more, and we perish in the wilderness."

The only identity afforded her in Jewish society, that of a mother, is at stake with the possible death of her sons, and her entire hope for a new life for her and her daughters is threatened. The most comforting words mustered by a prophet and compassionate husband do nothing for her. She is inconsolable, temporarily robbed of any sense of self on their journey to the promised land.

But there is a turnaround to her justified murmuring. With her sons' return, she emerges no longer just as Lehi's wife, and not just as Nephi's mother, but as a person with her own voice and her own testimony. She is her own witness. Sariah's reconciliation is given to us with her own words: 

"Now I know of a surety that he Lord hath commanded my husband to flee into the wilderness; yea, and I also know of a surety that the Lord hath protected my sons, and delivered them out of the hands of Laban, and given them power whereby they could accomplish the thing which the Lord hath commanded them. And after this manner of language did she speak."

Though she is testifying of her husband's calling as prophet, Sariah is nonetheless liberated by a faith that is at last independent of her husband, and she is given space on the gold plates to carve out her own witness. From there, she is provided the strength necessary to continue on her difficult journey to the promised land, even though she was soon after nearly brought to the grave on the ship by the men and their "exceeding rudeness."

Alas, there is no "Book of Sariah." She may not have even been literate, (though I like to believe she was.) But despite having only one verse to speak, one would at least hope that Sariah's would begin a legacy of incorporating women's voice and testimony into the Nephite record, engraving their words in gold alongside their husbands, brothers, and sons. But this did not happen. The nameless sisters in that first generation in the Americas, from the daughters of Lehi to the daughters of Ishmael, and continuing on in a long and tragic line of male-only generations all the way to a motherless, wifeless Moroni, prove that the Nephite's did not continue with Sariah's example if including women in the record.

From there on out, the only named women, the only women who ever speak in the record, or are mentioned by name, are Lamanite women. Abish. The mothers of the army of Helaman. King Lamoni's wife. The Lamanite Queen. All of these have a poignant place in the narrative. But if we try to find the same in the Nephites, we come up empty handed.

Without hyperbole, this eventually led to the Nephite's total destruction. It was their failure to "love their wives" that set them apart from the Lamanites and, as prophesied by Jacob, led to their downfall. However the Lamanites, who according to Jacob valued women at least more than the Nephites did, were spared to be redeemed in the last days.

One is left wondering that if women were treated differently in this ancient society, would the storyline be different? Would we still have to grapple with the tedious war chapters—the endless battles, the violence, the depravity—if women were valued the same as men in their society?

One BYU researcher I admire very much, Dr. Valerie Hudson, has studied and measured extensively different variables of how women are treated in nations around the world, and convincingly argues that "the fate of nations is integrally tied to the status of women in society." 

This can certainly be true of the Nephites. If we are looking to the Nephites as a model we should emulate, I believe we are reading it wrong.

So where do go from here?

Mormon and Moroni write to us on the hill as they witness the utter downfall of their patriarchal society, documenting in painful detail the cruelty and depravity, especially towards women, as outlined in Moroni 9. Moroni implores: 

"Condemn me not because of mine imperfection, neither my father, because of his imperfection, neither them who have written before him; but rather give thanks unto God that he hath made manifest unto you our imperfections, that ye may learn to be more wise than we have been."

O Ye Fair Ones: Mormon and Moroni witness the destruction of their people.

Without condemning, is it presumptuous to believe we can be "more wise" than the Nephites? If every attempt to create a Zion society in the scriptures has ended in disaster, what makes the restored Church any different? What do we have that they did not?

Well, for one thing, we have our unprecedented fight for global women's rights.

Moving Forward: Nephi's Sisters in Zion

When we look back on the progress that women have made in society over the past two hundred years since the Nephite record was extracted from the hill Cumorah—since heavenly messengers have turned their heavenly keys and Moroni has come to announce the Lord's coming with a trump—it has been very heartening. Women have gone from silent property to citizens with a voice in only a few short years. 

But how much more needs to be done? Well if the status of women is a temperature check on how well a nation is doing, I would say that given the state of things and the struggles we face worldwide, that the answer is "plenty of work."

Talking with the women in my life, some tell me they do not resonate with the claim that women struggle at church. Some say that they already do feel heard and involved at every level. Like Sariah, they have already made it onto the plates. I do not want to minimize their voice or their experience in any way. I am aware that many women already do speak in church, teach lessons, plan activities, participate in decision making, work in leadership positions, and some already feel like their voice is valued equally alongside the witness of their brothers and their husbands as they counsel and receive revelation together. I am truly happy for them.

But I also know that many women in this church do not feel included. Without changing any doctrine, there are some policies and church culture that could be changed to afford a space for some women to better reach their potential, especially if their spiritual gifts are not in the traditional sphere of caregiving and nurturing. Are women who feel excluded wrong in how they feel? Are they deceived by the feminists? Lost to the deceptive voices of the world? Is "all well in Zion, yea, Zion prospereth?" Are we pacified with the status quo of women at church? Do we spend more time decrying "radical feminism" and not enough time repenting and changing the ways we might be marginalizing women? In other words, if Nephi's sisters were to ask to write something to their posterity on our modern day golden plates, would we give them room to do so? Or would we just continue to let the men do the talking?

Last week at General Conference, I heard the voice of the Lord in the words of our prophet and apostles, and I felt the guidance and strength I needed. I was filled. But with only three women who made it to the pulpit, including the closing prayer, out of all 10 hours of the broadcast, I thought about how we can better fulfill President Nelson's plea for more women to step up and share their voices with us.

Of course, the Holy Ghost can teach us regardless of the gender of the messenger, and I do not mean to sow seeds of discontent in an otherwise marvelous conference. I sustain those who are specially set apart as special witnesses of Christ, and respect that they may be given priority in their messages. I do not claim insight into how speakers are chosen, but I do wonder: if there is no precedent for how women can speak up and share their voice at the highest levels, how can this happen on the ground? As one blogger writes, "You can't listen to women if they aren't invited to speak."

I do not know how much more needs to be done to give Nephi's sisters a voice and an identity today, but I am certain we can improve. I believe the first step to progress is to listen to our sisters, both those who are happy with the status quo and those who are not. I am not always the best at this, as my wife will hasten to tell you, but I am trying. Some of the necessary changes will come quietly, through the gentle voice of revelation. Others will require courage and a struggle. All will come from asking the Lord as we go to Him over and over again for guidance. Some of those changes to give women a voice will require official channels, but most, I think, are simply cultural attitudes that will fall away as everyday members persistently seek and ask how to include our sisters in the church. Regardless, it is going to take a lot of work. I do not believe God wants us to wait around for instructions on how to do this.

Unfortunately, many women are feeling more out of place in a church that is designed for Nephi. Young women in particular, I believe, are hungry for a church that is better suited to their needs. We have a rising generation of youth that is very comfortable asking questions and expecting cultural and official teachings that promote gender equality. We have young women who want to serve, but don't know how in a church designed by, and for, their brothers. 

And for the men, it will require active listening without assuming that we have already achieved equality in the church. Not yet, my brothers. Gender inequality is the most persistent, lingering result of the Fall of Adam and Eve. It is the foundation of the lone and dreary world. We will stay lone and dreary until we are side by side with our sisters as equal partners. The bride is not ready for the bridegroom. Bringing men and women together is the only thing that will bring us back into Eden's paradisiacal glory. At least, that is the symbolism I feel in the temple.

As contention increases inside and out of the church, we need more than ever a church designed by and for women as well as the men. We need the witness of Nephi's sisters to stabilize us, and while I might emphasize they are not responsible to "fix" the men, adding their voice alongside ours will stop us from falling into the same male-dominated patterns of contention like the Nephites did. Their voices are greatly needed.

Stay with Nephi

In the end, in spite of his weaknesses, Nephi's unnamed sisters remained with him. Nephi records, 

"Wherefore, it came to pass that I, Nephi, did take my family, and also Zoram and his family, and Sam, mine elder brother and his family, and Jacob and Joseph, my younger brethren, and also my sisters, and all those who would go with me. And all those who would go with me were those who believed in the warnings and the revelations of God; wherefore, they did hearken unto my words."

Today, I pray for the same. That our sisters will stay with us in Christ in spite of our shortcomings. That they will stay with me in spite of my numerous blunders. The only thing that will make this happen is mine and our repentance.

I know we have a prophet who guides us to safety in the wilderness towards Jesus Christ. I believe a large part of the ongoing restoration is the restoration of truths about gender equality. Just as the early saints kept their faith in Zion in spite of the failures of their leaders, in spite of the times when reality did not match with the ideal, we can forgive each other, bear with each other, and listen to each other.

For that to happen, we need Nephi's sisters to have a name. We need them to have an independent identity, and to speak and lead us on our journey. We need men to be proactive in allowing space for women to lead. We need both Lehi and Sariah's faith to be given equal weight on the record as we flee the wickedness of gender inequality at Jerusalem, making our way slowly, painfully, toward the promised land.

We need Nephi's sisters now more than ever as we continue to build our eternal families in the wilderness.

Beholding the Wind, the Earthquake, and the Fire

Tomorrow is General Conference.

It has got me thinking this week about how the Lord speaks to me, and how I can prepare myself to hear the voice of the Lord.

In the Book of Mormon, before the resurrected Lord appeared to the Nephites, there were some dramatic geological changes. Earthquakes, mighty winds, and fires broke up the rocks, buried their loved ones, and devastated their communities. In their disrupted state, it says "they heard a voice...and it was not a harsh voice, neither was it a loud voice; nevertheless, and notwithstanding it being a small voice it did pierce them that did hear to the center." (3 Nephi 11:3)

We have had some significant shifts in our socio-political landscape recently. I think I have more respect for the earthquake, the wind, and the fire than I ever used to. Most importantly, I appreciate the way this pandemic and the turmoil of 2020 has prepared my heart to hear the voice of the Lord.

Revelation Can Come from the Bottom

I used to believe that all revelation for the world must come from the top-down, from the prophet. I still believe that when it comes to official policies and changes to the church structure, this is true. I leave that to them. But I do not believe that the work of seeking and preparing for those policy changes leading up to those answers is up to them. It is my job to be a seeker, to ask my questions and engage with difficult issues until my heart breaks wide open and the Lord can speak with a whisper to my heart. If we just passively wait for God to speak to us by semiannual announcement over the pulpit, it removes our responsibility in the process of revelation. It would disengage us from the process, and not to mention make us very angsty and powerless. We might find ourselves wringing our hands when our leaders aren't saying the things we want them to say. We might wonder why our prophets act more like administrators, or like custodians of the church in Zarahemla, instead of crying repentance on the wall like Samuel the Lamanite.

The teachings of prophets at conference and throughout the year have stayed relatively constant: a pleading for faith in Jesus Christ, repentance, and covenant making and keeping. The announcement of temples adds a bit of zing semiannually, but it is still a predictable part of the conference. Even the recent changes from our current prophet President Nelson that we breathlessly talk about, not to minimize their significance, are really more like "small and simple" policy changes, things like moving church services from 3 hours to 2, a new ministering program, young women can now hand out a towel at the baptismal font, older and younger men are realigned into a single Elders Quorum, women can give their nod as witnesses when a person goes all the way under the water, and single men can now serve in bishoprics. All these changes are just small shifts that reflect greater, much more miraculous trends in a changing world. If all we see are these policy changes, we might miss the "marvelous work and a wonder" part that the Lord is doing in the world.

When it comes to the social change that is required to make space for the restoration, it is a collaboration of many. Revelation of this kind is more likely to be bottom-up. Grassroots movements lead out to address major problems in our society, and we now have the technology to make these conversations go even farther, faster. Not all of these movements are good or inspired, of course, and some are downright dangerous spiritually, but when a group of people seek for something good, either within or without of the church, and as we seek the will of the Lord as these things flash across our news pages, it can open the doors for further revelations from God. 

The next step, it seems, is for the church to then quietly adjust its policies to reflect the revelatory changes that are already happening in the world. It is a much more inclusive, collaborative approach, with many good people outside the church being recruited by the Lord in the process of preparing the world for Christ. This can be frustrating to some who believe that the church isn't leading out more on serious issues, but I believe it is more in line with way God works. He doesn't do a job with one servant when he can use a million, so that more people, both inside the church and out, can receive the blessings of their service.

In short, we need to get over the idea that we are the only heroes preparing the world for the Second Coming. 

Too often we disparage the work that goes on outside of the church. The protests, the marches, the battles for a cause. Yes, sometimes it is loud. Sometimes it is messy. Sometimes it is complicated. It is always done by imperfect people, and we always need the spirit to know which political storms are bringing us closer to Zion, and which ones are taking us further away. And yes, we do need to be careful that we are not so caught up in the earthquake that we miss the still small voice that comes after. But the work of preparing the world for the second coming must first be loud, messy, and complicated. Slavery didn't end without a fight. Women's suffrage wasn't handed out without making some noise. Civil rights don't happen without a protest. With todays numerous issues, it is obvious that corrupt power will not relent to our demands quietly. Instead of turning our back on that work of preparation for God's Kingdom to expand, we can stand on the mount with Elijah and behold it. Be grateful for it. Feel the way the Lord comes quietly to His people after every noisy political storm. 

Beholding the Earthquake, Wind, and Fire

My mind keeps going back to Elijah's vision on the mount. Elijah had been called of God and retired to a cave, feeling completely overwhelmed and frustrated in his responsibility as prophet. It says, "he requested for himself that he might die; and said, It is enough; now, O Lord, take away my life; for I am not better than my fathers." The Lord continued to feed Elijah in his dejected state for forty days by ravens. After that, the Lord asked, "What doest thou here, Elijah?"

In that moment, Elijah stood upon the mountain, 

"And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind rent the mountains, and brake in pieces the rocks before the Lord; but the Lord was not in the wind: and after the wind an earthquake; but the Lord was not in the earthquake. And after the earthquake a fire; but the Lord was not in the fire: and after the fire a still small voice." (1 Kings 19:9-12)

Like the case of the Nephites, it feels like there is a preparatory role that the wind, earthquake, and fire must play before Elijah can receive the quiet voice of the Lord. These forces rend mountains, break in pieces the rocks, and make room for something else to move in. As we look around the world and see the political movements, the social change, the upheavals, the social media comment threads and arguments, the loud clamor of the world, we can see how it provides needed change and also the catalyst for our own quiet moments with the Lord. Joseph Smith would never have retired to a grove of trees without the "war of words and tumult of opinions" that prepared his mind to seek for the Lord. 

We cannot receive difficult answers without asking difficult questions.

Before the Restoration, there was the Reformation. Noisy men and women who broke up the rocks of religious persecution for us and were martyrs to make God's word available to the boy who drives the plow. Today, the work of breaking up the social and political landscape to make space for the still small voice is ongoing. The work of the noisy laborers goes forward in tandem with the stillness of the restoration. We may not like the sounds of jackhammers and bulldozers and nail guns outside our window, but we had better get used to it, because they are busy building our house. And maybe we should get out there and help throw a hammer, too.

From our messy efforts in whatever cause we feel inspired to enlist in, I believe that the Kingdom of God will always move forward quietly behind us, filling in carefully the spaces carved out for it by the winds and earthquakes and fires we make.

"But the Lord was not in the earthquake." The role of the church never was to be a major player on the stage of politics. That is a role given to regular, ordinary people, like you and me, regardless of our religion or lack thereof. By in large, it is up to us to do the work of asking and seeking for greater knowledge, not to wait idly by for Elijah, or President Nelson, or God's representative to mandate social justice from the mount.

"If you have desires to serve, ye are called to the work."

To Whom Shall We Go?

At the end of a pandemic year, and after a year of disappointments, disillusionment, and frustrations, perhaps feeling our spiritual hopes crash against the harshness of reality, some of us may be questioning our faith. We might see the failures of our own church to measure up to our ideals. Others may just feel underwhelmed. After so long being fed on pathetic morsels of nourishment brought to us by the ravens in a cave of pandemic isolation, we might feel the Lord asking us, as I have felt Him ask to me, "What doest thou here, Christopher?"

Or, as Christ asked Peter after so many left Him when He failed to live up to their expectations as a mover and a shaker in the political issues of their day, "Will you also go away?"

Last Sunday as I looked at the tokens of Christ's body and blood up there on the stand, and looking around the chapel at the good "small and simple" people gathered around me, I felt, as Peter did, the words in my heart, "Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life." (John 6:68)

What the church does is different from the earthquake, or the wind, or the fire. It is quiet. It is small and simple. It is "peace, not as the world giveth." It is the church of the same man who was found quietly doing good away from the power structures that existed in His day. His work takes place in the souls of men and women, filling the emptiness left by the storms, and healing the unseen woundedness of our hearts. He is the God of lepers, of blind men, and of the woman at the well. It was Calvary that defined His life the most. He was a great big giant letdown to those who wanted Him to skip the small stuff and overthrow the Roman Empire already and stop wasting time with simple sermons about faith and repentance and baptism, and then just up and die on a hill.

Whatever keys were turned at the start of this dispensation, whatever messengers are being sent today, whatever heavenly seals are being opened in preparation for the Second Coming, they are going to come from God to the whole world, and involve not just a few. I hope to be involved when I can. And always, like Elijah, I will stand on my mount and behold it all with wonder and thanksgiving, recognizing the hand of the Lord when I see it.

And after the earthquake and fire and wind that passes by in my newsfeed each week, I will make sure that I spend time with that still small voice, and return to Christ's sacrament table every Sunday, "that I may always have His [still, small] spirit to be with me."

So, considering all that has happened in the last six months, I will be looking for a still small voice, not an earthquake, tomorrow at General Conference.