So fun (for me) to look at...and I've realized I need to kick it up a notch in my Christmas morning attire, gracious...
Friday, November 16, 2012
Thursday, November 15, 2012
My week
updated, to make sense..
While completely unintentional, I overbooked this week and then other things have trickled in as well. I'm here to brag more than complain. Due to this bragging I expect tomorrow to run as smooth as bricks in molasses...
It was mostly cooking..
I made dinner for a sweet friend with the cutest new baby!!
Made a breakfast casserole and got it to the middle school by 8:15
Made yummy potatoes for Brandon's office potluck
and brownies for the school's fall festival, all in a 24 hr period, of which I was home and awake 12 of those hours.
and made dinner with a table set..tablecloth and all.
I do better when there's too much to do.
Included in all of this power cooking (which wasn't really, everything was pretty easy)
I also,
Made some hard decisions, not my forte.
Went to bed early almost every night..with the possible exception of this one.
Decked our halls for Christmas..don't judge, we won't be here for two weeks during the actual event (which we are excited about) (feel free to break in and clean!) but didn't want to miss out on our house all Christmasy. The girls loved it, Brandon and Cole endured.
Rocked some jeans that are two sizes smaller than the past ?? years. Rocked may be a strong word for this.
Bought throw pillows, this was crazy difficult because those things are just too expensive for their size and purpose. I couldn't even look at the register as they were scanned. But I do like looking at them on my couch :).
Showed Hannah tough love, this one probably takes the cake.
Paused Facebook activity.. ok, that one takes the cake. :)
Oh and probably ate my way back into those roomier jeans.
I was going to post old Christmas pics to help you with the early holiday mood we have going here, but can't access photos..maybe tomorrow!
While completely unintentional, I overbooked this week and then other things have trickled in as well. I'm here to brag more than complain. Due to this bragging I expect tomorrow to run as smooth as bricks in molasses...
It was mostly cooking..
I made dinner for a sweet friend with the cutest new baby!!
Made a breakfast casserole and got it to the middle school by 8:15
Made yummy potatoes for Brandon's office potluck
and brownies for the school's fall festival, all in a 24 hr period, of which I was home and awake 12 of those hours.
and made dinner with a table set..tablecloth and all.
I do better when there's too much to do.
Included in all of this power cooking (which wasn't really, everything was pretty easy)
I also,
Made some hard decisions, not my forte.
Went to bed early almost every night..with the possible exception of this one.
Decked our halls for Christmas..don't judge, we won't be here for two weeks during the actual event (which we are excited about) (feel free to break in and clean!) but didn't want to miss out on our house all Christmasy. The girls loved it, Brandon and Cole endured.
Rocked some jeans that are two sizes smaller than the past ?? years. Rocked may be a strong word for this.
Bought throw pillows, this was crazy difficult because those things are just too expensive for their size and purpose. I couldn't even look at the register as they were scanned. But I do like looking at them on my couch :).
Showed Hannah tough love, this one probably takes the cake.
Paused Facebook activity.. ok, that one takes the cake. :)
Oh and probably ate my way back into those roomier jeans.
I was going to post old Christmas pics to help you with the early holiday mood we have going here, but can't access photos..maybe tomorrow!
Sunday, November 11, 2012
Examples
It's been a rough week. And despite the "silencing" post, it has had nothing to do with the election, oh how I wish. So I had a couple of incidents wherein I felt completely justified to lash out and oh so wanted to and was soooo close to doing so. Then I started working on my sharing time lesson for Primary (children's church class). It was about being a missionary by setting a good example. In listing all the ways we can be an example to others of what being a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and as Meshach referenced today, being a christian christian (non-denominational I say), being kind to those that aren't as kind to us came up....darn it!
And not darn it too. I knew it was a blessing then and even more so today as I taught it to sweet (talky) faces, I knew that I'd been saved from making big mistakes. No matter how justified I felt I could not let Satan gain the upper hand. It would've felt good and been so wrong. It is never the answer to respond with kind.
My good Cole brought up this story...
https://www.lds.org/new-era/2012/01/people-noticed?lang=eng
He told the last part about a man watching when the lady fell and then mentioning their natural reaction..
Is our natural reaction who we are? Scary, cause my natural reaction was not pretty. But I can say I am trying harder. I did wait, I received inspiration through my calling and I am steering the situation in a different course.
Oh bonus, almost forgot...today our family had a wonderful day together. A lot of times we have friends over and play games and that is really fun and nice, but not a lot of family time. Today was family time and we soaked each other up. I even ended up taking the opportunity to wash my children's feet (I'm really hoping all that dirt came from playing in the backyard and not my floors). They laughed and piddled and adored it..priceless. As were were settling in, I said hey lets read a nice story to calm everyone down and Laura picked a story at random. Cole was listening and told me wait for the end. It was the story he cited for my lesson. Call it what you will, I saw God's hand today over and over, it was beautiful.
And not darn it too. I knew it was a blessing then and even more so today as I taught it to sweet (talky) faces, I knew that I'd been saved from making big mistakes. No matter how justified I felt I could not let Satan gain the upper hand. It would've felt good and been so wrong. It is never the answer to respond with kind.
My good Cole brought up this story...
https://www.lds.org/new-era/2012/01/people-noticed?lang=eng
He told the last part about a man watching when the lady fell and then mentioning their natural reaction..
Is our natural reaction who we are? Scary, cause my natural reaction was not pretty. But I can say I am trying harder. I did wait, I received inspiration through my calling and I am steering the situation in a different course.
Oh bonus, almost forgot...today our family had a wonderful day together. A lot of times we have friends over and play games and that is really fun and nice, but not a lot of family time. Today was family time and we soaked each other up. I even ended up taking the opportunity to wash my children's feet (I'm really hoping all that dirt came from playing in the backyard and not my floors). They laughed and piddled and adored it..priceless. As were were settling in, I said hey lets read a nice story to calm everyone down and Laura picked a story at random. Cole was listening and told me wait for the end. It was the story he cited for my lesson. Call it what you will, I saw God's hand today over and over, it was beautiful.
silencing
Conservative post...feel free to pass on..but don't miss the examples post that is before or after this..and yes they may seem contradictory, but like the post heading says I'm silencing.....
the voices in my head. I've tried to leave it alone... really, but I need to put my thoughts down if for nothing else, my sanity. But I hope my kids will look back and say she voted for who and why? I want my kids to know why I voted for Romney, not because he was mormon, not because I didn't want to help others. And interestingly enough, this blog will most likely go the way of cyber dust and all they will have to live on is the example I've provided in my everyday life (scary). Here we go...I only have two points that I'm touching on and hopefully it will be enough to let me sleep.
I've seen wretched comedians ( I honestly think of Bill Mayher talking about his and get nauseous) and others saying if Jesus was to show up today he'd be a liberal. This disturbs me greatly. Jesus showed us the example of how to live our lives individually. He went out and helped people, of his own accord. He did not elect an official to force him and others to be charitable. Actually, his plan was the exact opposite of this. He beckons, he does not take. Continuing to read the mantra "of this is what Jesus would do", disheartens me that the Savior was and is being used in a political debacle (I know plenty on both sides do this and shame and I hope I haven't). This is not what his sacrifice was for. Yes we are to help people and love one another. This is simply not the same as the government taxing our paychecks to disperse as it sees fit.. It simply is not. The majority of voters for this idea are rich to someone and it seems to me that if they all went and acted on their ideas w/o waiting for someone to take it from them, we'd be on our way to where we need to be. There's a lot more detail to that, but I think the gist of it is made and if not, hey I 'm no politician :).
And the lovely, uncontroversial...
right to choose for women. Apparently if the nation's majority feels that this is deemed ok then I, who whole heartedly believe that life does begin before a baby's first breath, should just let them go right on ahead. The fact is if you leave the fetus alone it will most likely become a living breathing person who already had a soul. If, by law, it is not okay to kill the baby the second it leaves the womb, how is it possible to say that it's ok to do it before (sleepless nights)? And if we're concerned about a women's rights to do what she wants to with her body, does this mean we need to find a way to find out the sex early enough so as to ask the woman inside the womb to see if she'd like to enter this world or not? Women have a choice, plain and simple, and it's typically before conception. Could we not use the the funds for this project to educate and support the mother through the pregnancy as much as needed and make it easier for the hundreds of thousands of parents who are ready to have a child, but aren't able to, to adopt these "mistakes". People go on and on about the rape and incest cases and those instances are different, but what are the statistics on this? If you walk into a clinic how many women waiting will be a victim of these crimes? As I look into my children's eyes I know that who they are started long before they breathed their first breath here and to say well if the country wants it who am I to stop it is interesting to say the least.
And exhaling. Peace.
the voices in my head. I've tried to leave it alone... really, but I need to put my thoughts down if for nothing else, my sanity. But I hope my kids will look back and say she voted for who and why? I want my kids to know why I voted for Romney, not because he was mormon, not because I didn't want to help others. And interestingly enough, this blog will most likely go the way of cyber dust and all they will have to live on is the example I've provided in my everyday life (scary). Here we go...I only have two points that I'm touching on and hopefully it will be enough to let me sleep.
I've seen wretched comedians ( I honestly think of Bill Mayher talking about his and get nauseous) and others saying if Jesus was to show up today he'd be a liberal. This disturbs me greatly. Jesus showed us the example of how to live our lives individually. He went out and helped people, of his own accord. He did not elect an official to force him and others to be charitable. Actually, his plan was the exact opposite of this. He beckons, he does not take. Continuing to read the mantra "of this is what Jesus would do", disheartens me that the Savior was and is being used in a political debacle (I know plenty on both sides do this and shame and I hope I haven't). This is not what his sacrifice was for. Yes we are to help people and love one another. This is simply not the same as the government taxing our paychecks to disperse as it sees fit.. It simply is not. The majority of voters for this idea are rich to someone and it seems to me that if they all went and acted on their ideas w/o waiting for someone to take it from them, we'd be on our way to where we need to be. There's a lot more detail to that, but I think the gist of it is made and if not, hey I 'm no politician :).
And the lovely, uncontroversial...
right to choose for women. Apparently if the nation's majority feels that this is deemed ok then I, who whole heartedly believe that life does begin before a baby's first breath, should just let them go right on ahead. The fact is if you leave the fetus alone it will most likely become a living breathing person who already had a soul. If, by law, it is not okay to kill the baby the second it leaves the womb, how is it possible to say that it's ok to do it before (sleepless nights)? And if we're concerned about a women's rights to do what she wants to with her body, does this mean we need to find a way to find out the sex early enough so as to ask the woman inside the womb to see if she'd like to enter this world or not? Women have a choice, plain and simple, and it's typically before conception. Could we not use the the funds for this project to educate and support the mother through the pregnancy as much as needed and make it easier for the hundreds of thousands of parents who are ready to have a child, but aren't able to, to adopt these "mistakes". People go on and on about the rape and incest cases and those instances are different, but what are the statistics on this? If you walk into a clinic how many women waiting will be a victim of these crimes? As I look into my children's eyes I know that who they are started long before they breathed their first breath here and to say well if the country wants it who am I to stop it is interesting to say the least.
And exhaling. Peace.
Sunday, November 4, 2012
Thursday, September 13, 2012
Where the two cents is
Hopefully you missed my post of my 1.5 cents. I was ranting on and on and not getting my point across very well about wanting to help others and being sure others helped themselves..basically disagreeing with the government's idea of helping others in our country.
I happened upon a talk that lays my thoughts and some Prophets of God fairly well...this is from President Romney from a while back quoting President Clark who warned us even longer ago. Just wanting to help others is not enough. We have to want to the right way, the Lord's way....
I've edited for length and highlighted my faves:
Before doing so, however, I desire to say a word or two about agency.
Free agency means the freedom and power to choose and act. Next to life itself, it is man’s most precious inheritance.
Free agency was operative in the spirit world. The gospel plan, as there proposed and adopted, provided that men should enjoy agency in mortality. Satan, with a third of the hosts of heaven, fought it there and lost, but they did not give up their opposition to the principle.
In the Garden of Eden, God endowed Adam and his posterity with free agency. Satan and his followers have, from then until now, sought directly and in every conceivable indirect manner to substitute the principle of force for the principle of free agency.
In the book of First Samuel, we have an instructive example of the results of making wrong decisions. In the first chapter we are told that Israel objected to being governed by judges. They wanted a king. The prophet told them that a king would make them servants. But they hearkened not, and persisted in demanding a king. This grieved Samuel, and the Lord said to him, “Hearken unto the voice of the people … for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.” (1 Sam. 8:7.)
Israel thus surrendered the form of free government God had given them. They got their king all right, and a few decades later they were taken captive into slavery. Slavery entered into by one’s own choice is no less slavery than that imposed upon him by external force.
Jesus, by the exercise of his agency, rose to be the second member of the Godhead. Lucifer, by the exercise of his agency, sank to Hades.
I suggest we consider what has happened to our agency with respect to contributing to the means used by the bureaucracy in administering government welfare services.
In order to obtain these means, one head of state is quoted as saying, “We’re going to take all the money we think is unnecessarily being spent and take it from the ‘haves’ and give to the ‘have nots’ that need it so much.” (Congressional Record, 1964, p. 6142—Remarks of the President to a Group of Leaders of Organizations of Senior Citizens in the Fish Room, Mar. 24, 1964.)
The difference between having the means with which to administer welfare assistance taken from us and voluntarily contributing it out of our love of God and fellowman is the difference between freedom and slavery.
Now as to the principle of love. In the operation of our Church Welfare Services, such love is to be the motivating power which moves us to give our time, money, and services.
“Let us love one another,” wrote John the Beloved, “for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. …
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” (1 Jn. 4:7–9, 11.)
“Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (1 Jn. 3:17; italics added.)
“If thou lovest me,” said Jesus, “… thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate of thy properties for their support. …
“And inasmuch as ye impart of your substance unto the poor, ye will do it unto me.” (D&C 42:29–31.)
When Jesus was asked, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” Matthew says that he answered:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
“This is the first and great commandment.
“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt. 22:36–40.)
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all three report this incident. Luke, however, further informs us that the lawyer who put the question said further, “And who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:29.)
And Jesus responded with his Good Samaritan parable:
Two of the three principles upon which the Church Welfare Services must function—agency and love of neighbor—are admirably taught in this parable.
When we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, might, and strength, we will love our brothers as ourselves, and we will voluntarily, in the exercise of our free agency, impart of our substance for their support.
Now about work. Work is just as important to the success of our welfare services as are the first and second great commandments and the preservation of our free agency.
We must ever keep in mind that the First Presidency, in announcing the welfare program in the October 1936 conference, said:
“Our primary purpose was to set up, in so far as it might be possible, a system under which the curse of idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift and self respect be once more established amongst our people. The aim of the Church is to help the people to help themselves. Work is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership.” (Conference Report, Oct. 1936, p. 3; italics added.)
A year before this statement was made, on October 7, 1935, President Clark, in a special priesthood meeting held in this tabernacle, referring to government gratuities, said:
“The dispensing of these great quantities of gratuities has produced in the minds of hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of people in the United States a love for idleness, a feeling that the world owes them a living. It has made a breeding ground for some of the most destructive political doctrines that have ever found any hold in this country of ours, and I think it may lead us into serious political trouble.
“I fear,” he continued, “we need not be surprised if some blood shall run before we of this nation finally find ourselves.”
In his conference address of April 1938, President Clark said this:
“I honor and respect old age. I would not see it suffer from want, not from disease that can be helped. It is entitled to every care, to every act of kindness, to every loving caress which a grateful community and a devoted family can give. “I have every sympathy with age. I know the difficulties which age has in fitting into modern, economic life. …
“Some plan must be devised that shall make certain that no aged person shall be cold or go hungry or unclad. But the prime responsibility for supporting an aged parent rests upon his family, not upon society. Ours is not a socialistic or communistic state, where the people are mere vassals to be driven about as animals from one corral to another. We are freemen. So still with us the family has its place and its responsibilities and duties, which are God-given. The family which refuses to keep its own is not meeting its duties. When an aged parent has no family or when the family is itself without means, then society must, as a matter of merest humanity, come to the rescue. This is perfectly clear.
“But it is a far cry from this wise principle to saying that every person reaching a fixed age shall thereafter be kept by the state in idleness. Society owes to no man a life of idleness, no matter what his age. I have never seen one line in Holy Writ that calls for, or even sanctions this. In the past no free society has been able to support great groups in idleness and live free.” (CR, Apr. 1938, pp. 106–7.)
And I’ll say to you that no society in the future will ever be able to do so.
And in a private letter five years later, President Clark wrote:
“You must remember that back and behind this whole propaganda of ‘pensions’, gratuities, and doles to which we are now being subjected, is the idea of setting up in America, a socialistic or communistic state, in which the family would disappear, religion would be prescribed and controlled by the state, and we should all become mere creatures of the state, ruled over by ambitious and designing men.”
What has happened during the third of a century since this statement was made testifies to President Clark’s prophetic insight.
Prayer in schools has been dealt a fatal blow. The integrity of the family is being undermined. Unemployment compensation, Medicaid, aid to families with dependent children (AFDC), food stamps, and hundreds of other transfer-payment programs for veterans, widows or widowers, and children are today all supported, totally or in part, by federal and state/local tax revenue.
Little is said or done in these programs about the obligation of parents to care for their own or of recipients to work for what they receive.
The Lord, in the revelations given during the Restoration, and the presidents of the Church since then, have unequivocally and repeatedly declared that our welfare services are to be founded on love and on work.
The Lord said in the revelation recorded in section 42 of the Doctrine and Covenants, specified by the Prophet Joseph as being the law of the Church:
“Thou shalt not be idle; for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer.” (D&C 42:42.)
Later He said:
“And the inhabitants of Zion also shall remember their labors, inasmuch as they are appointed to labor, in all faithfulness; for the idler shall be had in remembrance before the Lord.
“Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased,” he continued, “with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are also growing up in wickedness; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness.
“These things ought not to be, and must be done away from among them.” (D&C 68:30–32.)
“My faith does not lead me,” President Young continued, “to think the Lord will provide us with roast pigs, bread already buttered, etc.; he will give us the ability to raise the grain, to obtain the fruits of the earth, to make habitations, to procure a few boards to make a box, and when harvest comes, giving us the grain, it is for us to preserve it—to save the wheat until we have one, two, five, or seven years’ provisions on hand, until there is enough of the staff of life saved by the people to bread themselves and those who will come here seeking for safety. … [The fulfillment of that prophecy is yet in the future.]
“Ye Latter-day Saints, learn to sustain yourselves. …
“Implied faith and confidence in God is for you and me to do everything we can to sustain and preserve ourselves. …
“You have learned a good deal, it is true; but learn more; learn to sustain yourselves; lay up grain and flour, and save it against a day of scarcity. …
“Instead of searching after what the Lord is going to do for us, let us inquire what we can do for ourselves.” (Discourses of Brigham Young, Deseret Book, 1966 ed., pp. 291–93.)
“To be Latter-day Saints men and women must be thinkers and workers,” said President Joseph F. Smith. “They must be men and women who weigh matters in their minds; men and women who consider carefully their course of life and the principles that they have espoused.” (Gospel Doctrine, Deseret Book, 1939 ed., p. 114.)
President Grant declared:
“I am a firm believer that work does not kill anyone. …
“I have never seen the day when I was not willing to do the meanest work … rather than be idle. …
“Men should have a pride in doing their full share and never want to be paid for that which they have not earned. …
“I assert with confidence that the law of success, here and hereafter, is to have a humble and a prayerful heart, and to work, work, WORK. …
A statement which focuses upon and gives real meaning to what we have been talking about here is the following “Editorial on Labor,” written and published by John Taylor in Nauvoo, October 15, 1844. I just found this recently, and I think it’s a marvelous statement. This was way back there just after the Prophet had been martyred. It reads:
“Labor is the manufacturer of wealth. It was ordained of God, as the medium to be used by man to obtain his living [italics added]: hence it is the universal condition of this great bond to live. …
“God never meant to bemean his creation, especially his own image, because they had to labor:—no; never; God himself according to the good old book labored on this world, six days; and when Adam was animated from clay to life, by his spirit’s making use of him for a dwelling, we read that God put him into the garden to dress it:—Therefore, in connection with the samples of all holy men, we are bound to honor the laboring man: and despise the idler. …
“
Now, my brothers and sisters, the handwriting is on the wall; “the interpretation thereof [is] sure.” (Dan. 2:45.)
Both history and prophecy—and I may add, common sense—bear witness to the fact that no civilization can long endure which follows the course charted by bemused manipulators and now being implemented as government welfare programs all around the world.
Babylon shall be destroyed, and great shall be the fall thereof. (See D&C 1:16.)
But do not be discouraged. Zion will not go down with her, because Zion shall be built on the principles of love of God and fellowman, work, and earnest labor, as God has directed.
Remember that Enoch’s Zion was built in a day when wickedness was as rampant as it is among us today. Among those who rejected the word of God in that day “there were wars and bloodshed”; they were ripening in that iniquity which brought the flood. “But the Lord came and dwelt with his people, and they dwelt in righteousness. … because they were of one heart and one mind, … and there was no poor among them.” (Moses 7:16, 18.)
As we prepare for the building of Zion, we must not and we shall not abandon the basic principles upon which our Church Welfare Services are founded: love—love of God and neighbor—and work, or labor.
We shall persevere by helping people to help themselves until “the curse of idleness [is] done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift and self respect [are] once more established amongst our people.”
This is my witness, which I bear to you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
And me again...Even the best of people with the best of intentions in using the welfare program call fall into the pattern of idleness. The lord's way is not to use force to have us do anything, even help our fellowman. Why? I'm thinking He knows more than us and knows it won't work. In the end it is not helping others, it is enslaving them.
I happened upon a talk that lays my thoughts and some Prophets of God fairly well...this is from President Romney from a while back quoting President Clark who warned us even longer ago. Just wanting to help others is not enough. We have to want to the right way, the Lord's way....
I've edited for length and highlighted my faves:
Before doing so, however, I desire to say a word or two about agency.
Free agency means the freedom and power to choose and act. Next to life itself, it is man’s most precious inheritance.
Free agency was operative in the spirit world. The gospel plan, as there proposed and adopted, provided that men should enjoy agency in mortality. Satan, with a third of the hosts of heaven, fought it there and lost, but they did not give up their opposition to the principle.
In the Garden of Eden, God endowed Adam and his posterity with free agency. Satan and his followers have, from then until now, sought directly and in every conceivable indirect manner to substitute the principle of force for the principle of free agency.
In the book of First Samuel, we have an instructive example of the results of making wrong decisions. In the first chapter we are told that Israel objected to being governed by judges. They wanted a king. The prophet told them that a king would make them servants. But they hearkened not, and persisted in demanding a king. This grieved Samuel, and the Lord said to him, “Hearken unto the voice of the people … for they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me.” (1 Sam. 8:7.)
Israel thus surrendered the form of free government God had given them. They got their king all right, and a few decades later they were taken captive into slavery. Slavery entered into by one’s own choice is no less slavery than that imposed upon him by external force.
Jesus, by the exercise of his agency, rose to be the second member of the Godhead. Lucifer, by the exercise of his agency, sank to Hades.
I suggest we consider what has happened to our agency with respect to contributing to the means used by the bureaucracy in administering government welfare services.
In order to obtain these means, one head of state is quoted as saying, “We’re going to take all the money we think is unnecessarily being spent and take it from the ‘haves’ and give to the ‘have nots’ that need it so much.” (Congressional Record, 1964, p. 6142—Remarks of the President to a Group of Leaders of Organizations of Senior Citizens in the Fish Room, Mar. 24, 1964.)
The difference between having the means with which to administer welfare assistance taken from us and voluntarily contributing it out of our love of God and fellowman is the difference between freedom and slavery.
Now as to the principle of love. In the operation of our Church Welfare Services, such love is to be the motivating power which moves us to give our time, money, and services.
“Let us love one another,” wrote John the Beloved, “for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God.
“He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love.
“In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him. …
“Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another.” (1 Jn. 4:7–9, 11.)
“Whoso hath this world’s good, and seeth his brother have need, and shutteth up his bowels of compassion from him, how dwelleth the love of God in him?” (1 Jn. 3:17; italics added.)
“If thou lovest me,” said Jesus, “… thou wilt remember the poor, and consecrate of thy properties for their support. …
“And inasmuch as ye impart of your substance unto the poor, ye will do it unto me.” (D&C 42:29–31.)
When Jesus was asked, “Master, which is the great commandment in the law?” Matthew says that he answered:
“Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.
“This is the first and great commandment.
“And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
“On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.” (Matt. 22:36–40.)
Matthew, Mark, and Luke all three report this incident. Luke, however, further informs us that the lawyer who put the question said further, “And who is my neighbour?” (Luke 10:29.)
And Jesus responded with his Good Samaritan parable:
Two of the three principles upon which the Church Welfare Services must function—agency and love of neighbor—are admirably taught in this parable.
When we love the Lord our God with all our hearts, might, and strength, we will love our brothers as ourselves, and we will voluntarily, in the exercise of our free agency, impart of our substance for their support.
Now about work. Work is just as important to the success of our welfare services as are the first and second great commandments and the preservation of our free agency.
We must ever keep in mind that the First Presidency, in announcing the welfare program in the October 1936 conference, said:
“Our primary purpose was to set up, in so far as it might be possible, a system under which the curse of idleness would be done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift and self respect be once more established amongst our people. The aim of the Church is to help the people to help themselves. Work is to be re-enthroned as the ruling principle of the lives of our Church membership.” (Conference Report, Oct. 1936, p. 3; italics added.)
A year before this statement was made, on October 7, 1935, President Clark, in a special priesthood meeting held in this tabernacle, referring to government gratuities, said:
“The dispensing of these great quantities of gratuities has produced in the minds of hundreds of thousands—if not millions—of people in the United States a love for idleness, a feeling that the world owes them a living. It has made a breeding ground for some of the most destructive political doctrines that have ever found any hold in this country of ours, and I think it may lead us into serious political trouble.
“I fear,” he continued, “we need not be surprised if some blood shall run before we of this nation finally find ourselves.”
In his conference address of April 1938, President Clark said this:
“I honor and respect old age. I would not see it suffer from want, not from disease that can be helped. It is entitled to every care, to every act of kindness, to every loving caress which a grateful community and a devoted family can give. “I have every sympathy with age. I know the difficulties which age has in fitting into modern, economic life. …
“Some plan must be devised that shall make certain that no aged person shall be cold or go hungry or unclad. But the prime responsibility for supporting an aged parent rests upon his family, not upon society. Ours is not a socialistic or communistic state, where the people are mere vassals to be driven about as animals from one corral to another. We are freemen. So still with us the family has its place and its responsibilities and duties, which are God-given. The family which refuses to keep its own is not meeting its duties. When an aged parent has no family or when the family is itself without means, then society must, as a matter of merest humanity, come to the rescue. This is perfectly clear.
“But it is a far cry from this wise principle to saying that every person reaching a fixed age shall thereafter be kept by the state in idleness. Society owes to no man a life of idleness, no matter what his age. I have never seen one line in Holy Writ that calls for, or even sanctions this. In the past no free society has been able to support great groups in idleness and live free.” (CR, Apr. 1938, pp. 106–7.)
And I’ll say to you that no society in the future will ever be able to do so.
And in a private letter five years later, President Clark wrote:
“You must remember that back and behind this whole propaganda of ‘pensions’, gratuities, and doles to which we are now being subjected, is the idea of setting up in America, a socialistic or communistic state, in which the family would disappear, religion would be prescribed and controlled by the state, and we should all become mere creatures of the state, ruled over by ambitious and designing men.”
What has happened during the third of a century since this statement was made testifies to President Clark’s prophetic insight.
Prayer in schools has been dealt a fatal blow. The integrity of the family is being undermined. Unemployment compensation, Medicaid, aid to families with dependent children (AFDC), food stamps, and hundreds of other transfer-payment programs for veterans, widows or widowers, and children are today all supported, totally or in part, by federal and state/local tax revenue.
Little is said or done in these programs about the obligation of parents to care for their own or of recipients to work for what they receive.
The Lord, in the revelations given during the Restoration, and the presidents of the Church since then, have unequivocally and repeatedly declared that our welfare services are to be founded on love and on work.
The Lord said in the revelation recorded in section 42 of the Doctrine and Covenants, specified by the Prophet Joseph as being the law of the Church:
“Thou shalt not be idle; for he that is idle shall not eat the bread nor wear the garments of the laborer.” (D&C 42:42.)
Later He said:
“And the inhabitants of Zion also shall remember their labors, inasmuch as they are appointed to labor, in all faithfulness; for the idler shall be had in remembrance before the Lord.
“Now, I, the Lord, am not well pleased,” he continued, “with the inhabitants of Zion, for there are idlers among them; and their children are also growing up in wickedness; they also seek not earnestly the riches of eternity, but their eyes are full of greediness.
“These things ought not to be, and must be done away from among them.” (D&C 68:30–32.)
“My faith does not lead me,” President Young continued, “to think the Lord will provide us with roast pigs, bread already buttered, etc.; he will give us the ability to raise the grain, to obtain the fruits of the earth, to make habitations, to procure a few boards to make a box, and when harvest comes, giving us the grain, it is for us to preserve it—to save the wheat until we have one, two, five, or seven years’ provisions on hand, until there is enough of the staff of life saved by the people to bread themselves and those who will come here seeking for safety. … [The fulfillment of that prophecy is yet in the future.]
“Ye Latter-day Saints, learn to sustain yourselves. …
“Implied faith and confidence in God is for you and me to do everything we can to sustain and preserve ourselves. …
“You have learned a good deal, it is true; but learn more; learn to sustain yourselves; lay up grain and flour, and save it against a day of scarcity. …
“Instead of searching after what the Lord is going to do for us, let us inquire what we can do for ourselves.” (Discourses of Brigham Young, Deseret Book, 1966 ed., pp. 291–93.)
“To be Latter-day Saints men and women must be thinkers and workers,” said President Joseph F. Smith. “They must be men and women who weigh matters in their minds; men and women who consider carefully their course of life and the principles that they have espoused.” (Gospel Doctrine, Deseret Book, 1939 ed., p. 114.)
President Grant declared:
“I am a firm believer that work does not kill anyone. …
“I have never seen the day when I was not willing to do the meanest work … rather than be idle. …
“Men should have a pride in doing their full share and never want to be paid for that which they have not earned. …
“I assert with confidence that the law of success, here and hereafter, is to have a humble and a prayerful heart, and to work, work, WORK. …
A statement which focuses upon and gives real meaning to what we have been talking about here is the following “Editorial on Labor,” written and published by John Taylor in Nauvoo, October 15, 1844. I just found this recently, and I think it’s a marvelous statement. This was way back there just after the Prophet had been martyred. It reads:
“Labor is the manufacturer of wealth. It was ordained of God, as the medium to be used by man to obtain his living [italics added]: hence it is the universal condition of this great bond to live. …
“God never meant to bemean his creation, especially his own image, because they had to labor:—no; never; God himself according to the good old book labored on this world, six days; and when Adam was animated from clay to life, by his spirit’s making use of him for a dwelling, we read that God put him into the garden to dress it:—Therefore, in connection with the samples of all holy men, we are bound to honor the laboring man: and despise the idler. …
“
Now, my brothers and sisters, the handwriting is on the wall; “the interpretation thereof [is] sure.” (Dan. 2:45.)
Both history and prophecy—and I may add, common sense—bear witness to the fact that no civilization can long endure which follows the course charted by bemused manipulators and now being implemented as government welfare programs all around the world.
Babylon shall be destroyed, and great shall be the fall thereof. (See D&C 1:16.)
But do not be discouraged. Zion will not go down with her, because Zion shall be built on the principles of love of God and fellowman, work, and earnest labor, as God has directed.
Remember that Enoch’s Zion was built in a day when wickedness was as rampant as it is among us today. Among those who rejected the word of God in that day “there were wars and bloodshed”; they were ripening in that iniquity which brought the flood. “But the Lord came and dwelt with his people, and they dwelt in righteousness. … because they were of one heart and one mind, … and there was no poor among them.” (Moses 7:16, 18.)
As we prepare for the building of Zion, we must not and we shall not abandon the basic principles upon which our Church Welfare Services are founded: love—love of God and neighbor—and work, or labor.
We shall persevere by helping people to help themselves until “the curse of idleness [is] done away with, the evils of a dole abolished, and independence, industry, thrift and self respect [are] once more established amongst our people.”
This is my witness, which I bear to you in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.
And me again...Even the best of people with the best of intentions in using the welfare program call fall into the pattern of idleness. The lord's way is not to use force to have us do anything, even help our fellowman. Why? I'm thinking He knows more than us and knows it won't work. In the end it is not helping others, it is enslaving them.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
dwtf
that's don't want to forget:
Cole read 'To Kill a Mockingbird', possibly my favorite book, for evoking a greatness of emotions and other good stuff. Anyway, he didn't want to read it because there was no fantasy and basically because I suggested and the first couple of chapters are hard to get through. I figured if he's going to be reading 24/7 and books that are above his age, he needs good ones like these tucked in with the others. We did comtemplate the mature nature of parts of the book, but have already decided he needs 'the talk' stage 2 and possibly 3 before he's taught it at school. So Iasked him to read the first two chapters and then if he was done, he was done. He finished it on our trip to Orlando this weekend and we often use the 10 scale to rate experiences, books and such. So I asked, alright Cole 1-10? He replied 8-9. This made me happy. I love that he can appreciate a good read, that doesn't include dwarfs, dragons, werewolves. :)
Laura is impressing me more and more with her confidence and unshyness. She loves swimming soooo much. So we've decided to try her fall activity to be on the city swim team. This meant she had to try out and swim 75 yards. We are not naturally water people, so it's not like she's had a lot of time to improve her skills. We did do a lesson this summer that helped her out a lot. Anyway, she had to try out in front of other people and was ready to the be 2nd one to do it. She did it!!! Now we have to decide if we want to spill out the block of gold they want for fees. ugh!
Hannah was upset on the way home from Orlando we told her we knew she was tired. And while sobbing she said you don't cry because you're tired. You cry because someone has hurt you (sob), or something is beautiful (sob), or someone died and you were there. Sadly for her later she was upset...again and her daddy asked...is someone hurting you, no, is something beautiful, no, did someone die and you were there, she did not appreciate this.
Hannah keeps up cracking with things I'm sure she doesn't think is as humorous. But she is also very thoughtful. Recently a great man in our ward passed away and we were all very sad. Hannah continually prayed for him and his family and she also came up with the idea and carried out a fast for him to be ok, she was really still concerned for him even though we told her he was just fine, so she added his family to the fast as well. Very sweet stuff.
def. stuff we don't want to forget :)
Cole read 'To Kill a Mockingbird', possibly my favorite book, for evoking a greatness of emotions and other good stuff. Anyway, he didn't want to read it because there was no fantasy and basically because I suggested and the first couple of chapters are hard to get through. I figured if he's going to be reading 24/7 and books that are above his age, he needs good ones like these tucked in with the others. We did comtemplate the mature nature of parts of the book, but have already decided he needs 'the talk' stage 2 and possibly 3 before he's taught it at school. So Iasked him to read the first two chapters and then if he was done, he was done. He finished it on our trip to Orlando this weekend and we often use the 10 scale to rate experiences, books and such. So I asked, alright Cole 1-10? He replied 8-9. This made me happy. I love that he can appreciate a good read, that doesn't include dwarfs, dragons, werewolves. :)
Laura is impressing me more and more with her confidence and unshyness. She loves swimming soooo much. So we've decided to try her fall activity to be on the city swim team. This meant she had to try out and swim 75 yards. We are not naturally water people, so it's not like she's had a lot of time to improve her skills. We did do a lesson this summer that helped her out a lot. Anyway, she had to try out in front of other people and was ready to the be 2nd one to do it. She did it!!! Now we have to decide if we want to spill out the block of gold they want for fees. ugh!
Hannah was upset on the way home from Orlando we told her we knew she was tired. And while sobbing she said you don't cry because you're tired. You cry because someone has hurt you (sob), or something is beautiful (sob), or someone died and you were there. Sadly for her later she was upset...again and her daddy asked...is someone hurting you, no, is something beautiful, no, did someone die and you were there, she did not appreciate this.
Hannah keeps up cracking with things I'm sure she doesn't think is as humorous. But she is also very thoughtful. Recently a great man in our ward passed away and we were all very sad. Hannah continually prayed for him and his family and she also came up with the idea and carried out a fast for him to be ok, she was really still concerned for him even though we told her he was just fine, so she added his family to the fast as well. Very sweet stuff.
def. stuff we don't want to forget :)
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