Abraham Lincoln, Healer of the Divided Nation

Today marks an important event in our nation's history. On November 19, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln delivered the Gettysburg Address at the end of a bitter Civil War in America. 

We are routinely reminded, and especially after another recently concluded presidential election, that our nation today is deeply divided. I've heard way too many people remark to me their belief is that another civil war is brewing beneath the surface of our political landscape. Red and Blue continue to do combat against each other, but so far (gratefully) we witness only immaterial skirmishes mostly in the form of heated rhetoric. We have been subjected to scorched airwaves over cable television networks.

The net result of this round of bickering was a decisive victory for President Donald J. Trump. It wasn't a close election, and he will enter office in January, 2025, with a mandate for change that is already taking shape in his cabinet announcements. There seems to be no relenting on his part as the predictable criticisms have landed on his deaf ears. 

Lincoln at Gettysburg, 1863

For his part, Lincoln was a healer and a conciliator in the first rank. He sought peace, and even though the Union had essentially won the war by the time he was running for re-election in the upcoming presidential election of 1864, he was most interested in binding up the deep wounds that remained. He would win re-election, but then was assassinated on April 15, 1865.

It would be well for us on this day of anniversary to review his message to the nation in 1863. I invite you to refresh your memory by re-reading his famous speech. It's a good message for all Americans after finishing another presidential election.

The Battle of Gettysburg saw each side suffer roughly 23,000 casualties (killed, captured and wounded), making it the war's most destructive battle. The next day, July 4th, as Lee's army hastily retreated southward, Grant took Vicksburg on the Mississippi River. The twin victories at Gettysburg and Vicksburg ensured that the Confederacy's days were numbered. Never again would Lee's Army of Northern Virginia invade the north, and, indeed, it spent the rest of the war on the defensive.

After the defeats that summer, the Confederate strategy shifted from one of seeking a decisive military victory (which its army could at that point no longer produce) to one of wearing down the enemy — of making the war so costly for the Union that the Northern peace party would elect a president in the fall of 1864, who would end the war and grant Confederate independence. It was not to be.

That's a snapshot of the background as President Lincoln addressed the nation at Gettysburg with these scant 272 words:

Delivered at the dedication of the Soldiers' National Cemetery at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate — we can not consecrate — we can not hallow — this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us — that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.

Abraham Lincoln

November 19, 1863.

* * *

The Civil War remains the deadliest of all American wars. In 2011, demographic historian Dr. J. David Hacker published “A Census-Based Count of Civil War Dead,” in the scholarly quarterly, Civil War History, reporting that his in-depth study of recently digitized census data concluded that a more accurate estimate of Civil War deaths is about 750,000, with a range from 650.000 to as many as 850,000 dead.

Hacker, an associate professor of history at the University of Minnesota, believed that a fresh, detailed examination of the numbers from the 1850, 1860 and 1870 U.S. census tabulations might reveal a massive reduction for the young male population in 1870 that would reflect the human toll of the war. And that is what he found. Hacker’s research concluded that the normal survival pattern for young American men from 1860 to 1870 was far less — by about 750,000 — than it would have been had no war occurred.

Civil War History called Hacker’s findings “among the most consequential pieces” it has ever published. “It even further elevates the significance of the Civil War and makes a dramatic statement about how the war is a central moment in American history,” said Civil War historian Eric Foner.

“The first thing to stress is this is an estimate of the number of men missing in 1870. It is adjusted for possible census undercount and other things,” Hacker tells HISTORY. “It is not an estimate of the number of people who died on the battlefield. And why are these men missing? I think the only reasonable reason they're missing is because of the Civil War.” 

Source: (https://www.history.com/news/american-civil-war-deaths).

Well, One Out of Three Ain't Bad, Is It?

This Autumn season has featured prominently in my life this year: First, the World Series, followed by the Presidential Election, then the now-annual reintroduction of the local “Holy War” between the Utes and the Cougars. In all, they comprise three major events for my little household that I fully embraced.

                                                                             

Only problem for me was the Yankees lost to the Dodgers in five games, and last night the Utes fell in a dramatic comeback win to the Cougars 22-21 in the final seconds. 

President Donald J. Trump

However surprising as it was to half the country, President Donald J. Trump was re-elected to a second non-consecutive term in an Electoral College “landslide” as it was described by the pundits, coupled with a convincing popular vote total. I loved his choice of J.D. Vance as Vice-President. It was not even a close election.

So, Yankees and Utes fan that I am, two of those major events went down in flames. Now, mind you, I’m not describing myself as a Trumpster by any means, but I have to admit his victory salvaged a .333 batting average for me, and in baseball that’s good enough to get you into the Hall of Fame.

So I will claim a victory for America in Trump’s sweeping victory. I believe his forthcoming administration will prove providential for America in the coming four  years, especially when compared to the alternative of what might have been with a Harris/Walz ticket winning. 

Stunning to me was the fact that Kamala Harris did not out-poll Biden’s last election totals in 2020 in ONE SINGLE COUNTY in America. It was a complete refutation and rejection of her "candidacy." The much-ballyhooed so-called “Blue Wall” (seven historically Democratic states) ALL voted for Trump. She simply flunked the job interview with Americans who were voting against her. 

She has a radiant smile and the giggle to go with it, I’ll give her that, but seriously, she was little more than a tool of the party she represented and that was woefully inadequate this time around. Stunningly, she was an appointed surrogate for a badly declining Joe Biden whose mental acuity was displayed for all to see in the first debate against Trump, and she didn’t even have to seek votes among her party faithful to replace Biden on the ballots of all fifty states, as Trump did. It was an attempted “palace coup” and it failed miserably. 

Trump, on the other hand, is many questionable and dastardly things too but all his faults notwithstanding, America embraced their once-former leader with open arms given the obviously defective alternative. 

He answers literally to no one but himself. He’s a genuine all-American bad a**, and you can quote me on that. 

Even before the dust had settled on the election and before he has taken office, the leaders of the terrorist Hamas organization have signaled their desire for settling the war they started with Israel. Hopefully, that will prove a harbinger for other bad actors on the world stage to get in line with America’s wishes. 

One wonders if, and one hopes, Putin and Russia might follow suit in their ill-conceived incursion into Ukraine and seek for a cessation of those hostilities. Trump’s election will change the calculus of the war mongers in the world, but don’t be deceived into thinking war will suddenly go away. We’ll have war continually until the Savior comes again, for so it has been prophesied.

I have been a silent observer this time around in the national election, not signaling my intentions on my voting preferences, and I have joked when asked about it by saying I would write in Abraham Lincoln. 

Well, I can truthfully disclose now and forever on this page today that I voted (for the first time in my life) for a straight Republican ticket. I returned my ballot by mail to Wasatch County on the day I received it in the mail, and I can now claim my .333 batting average.

I didn’t strike out, and I can stoutly maintain as I did in my title that “one out of three ain’t bad, is it?”

Stop Trying? Really?

 “You’re Number One today, so you can stop trying.” That was the greeting I received yesterday in the brothers dressing room at the Mount Timpanogos Temple from one of the ordinance workers who was assigning the lockers. (I got assigned to locker F-1). I went there for an endowment session with my daughter Emily, then later we went to her home so she could trim my silver locks.

That greeting has stayed trapped at the frontal lobe of my brain for the last twenty-four hours. I haven’t been able to shake its implications since I heard it.

Of course, he was simply using an analogy (if that’s what it was), but I can’t help wondering if we ever reach a point in our eternal progression where we “can stop trying.”

Since it’s timely, and the World Series starts tonight (it’s October 25, 2024), think about what’s going through the brains of the players on the field for the Dodgers and the Yankees. Each won their respective NLCS and ALCS championships as the Number One teams in their respective National and American Leagues, but don’t think for one minute that anyone on that field tonight is thinking their work is done. Each is still trying to win the World Series, because finishing second just isn’t an option.

And that’s true across the board in every sport. Being Number One is always the goal, and nothing less will satisfy. 

I can’t help reflecting on why we learn so little about the Telestial and the Terrestrial Kingdoms in the scriptures. Instead, our Father in Heaven reveals A LOT about Celestial Glory, particularly the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom. Why? Because He’s interested in showering upon us ALL that He has upon conditions of repentance. Nothing less will satisfy His hopes for each of us.

It’s why President Russell M. Nelson seems so fixated upon the temples these days. He is preparing a kingdom of mortal people for the Celestial glory that awaits the faithful in these latter days. He teaches about the atonement of Jesus Christ as the key to obtaining those glorious blessings. The Savior died for us in a voluntary sacrifice for our sins, and when we repent of our sins He saves us and qualifies us for eternal life. President Nelson is ignoring EVERYTHING else. If he were a gambling man, we would say he is “ALL IN” on his bet on the Savior. 

He invites us to keep trying to obtain eternal life. I can’t imagine him ever saying to any of us, “You’re Number One now, so quit trying.” I envision him as Number One among us mortals, certainly, but do I think President Nelson is done trying? He’s 100 years old now, and he continues trying to expand our faith, our vision for the future and our eternal prospects. And I suspect he will continue doing so until he draws his last breath on this planet.

Yesterday I was drawn to the story of Amulek. I reflected on this prophet’s life as I read in the Book of Mormon in the chapel while I was waiting for the session to begin. He became Alma’s missionary companion (start reading about him in Alma 8). An angel stopped Amulek along the road one day, and instructed him to return to his home where he would meet a prophet of God who was hungry and needed Amulek’s sustenance. He was told Alma would bless him and his whole posterity if he would be obedient.

Amulek proved to be a blessing for Alma, and together they had much success among an extremely wicked population of the city of Ammonihah in those days, not unlike what we are witnessing in the world today. They kept trying, nevertheless, even though the record gives little doubt Alma was rejected - the scripture states they “reviled him, and spit upon him, and caused that he should be cast out of their city” - so he was abused and imprisoned for his efforts. Alma had given up the position of chief judge among the people so he could become a full-time missionary. Because he no longer held the “title” he was rejected by his tormentors, but still he kept trying to bring as many souls to Christ as he could.

And that’s just one example from scripture - there are scores more. 

I will be forever grateful to living prophets among whom I have lived. I have a testimony of the priesthood authority and the power that goes with it if we are true and faithful. 

Just this week I witnessed it in my brother, who was initially diagnosed with acute occlusions in two of his heart arteries and was scheduled for an installation of stents. He asked for a priesthood blessing from his two brothers and his son-in-law. He asked me to be voice, but I was merely a conduit to the heavenly throne of our Father in Heaven. 

An angiogram is a scan that uses X-rays, CT scans, or MRIs to examine blood vessels and blood flow in the body. A contrast dye is injected into a blood vessel to make the blood vessels visible on the scan. When my brother's angiogram was performed, the doctors were surprised by the finding. The occlusions, instead of being in the 90% category as originally diagnosed, were found to be in the 20-30% range and did not qualify for insertion of stents. The minimum threshold protocol calls for 50% occlusion. What’s the explanation for such a wide dichotomy on the findings?

My brother was blessed by priesthood power. He will be the first to tell you he received a miracle from his Heavenly Father. If he continues to be mindful of his ongoing genetic tendency toward heart disease and takes precautions, his life will be extended. His faith in God will also be a companion to his medical care taking.

These principles I have written about this morning are real, and they are as efficacious in our year of 2024 as they were in the year 62 B.C. when Amulek and Alma were trying to bless their people with the gifts of the gospel.

I love each of you, and I encourage you to never stop trying in all your righteous endeavors. Heavenly Father is the epitome of good in our lives, and is the True Number One in our universe. 

He will never stop trying to bless us with everything that is good for our blessing and the blessing of those we serve. It’s what He does, and He has always done it. So must we as His emissaries across the globe wherever we are called to go and minister.

Like Amulek, if we remain true and faithful our entire posterity will be blessed.

A Thousand Million Gazillion

This will seem a little frivolous to some, given the tendency I have to being serious most of the time, but I will proceed anyway.

The fall is heralding the changing of seasons as a harbinger of winter that won't be far behind. The temperatures are moderating too, reduced to the 70s and 80s in contrast to the 90s and 100s of summertime. I even saw a light dusting of snow the other night.

But nothing can compare to the onslaught of houseflies that has invaded my living space when they seem to materialize from nowhere. Their numbers are what prompted the title of today's post. Keep your comments about satire and hyperbole to yourselves. I have no idea if that number is even a reality, but it gives some approximation of the fantasy world in which I am living. I suppose they are seeking what little remaining heat may be found indoors. They seem to prefer climbing all over the inside of the windows when the sun is out.

So all of that said, I went searching in an attempt to find some useful purpose that the common housefly might offer to humankind like me. Here's what I discovered this morning in a simple Google search.

Houseflies play several useful roles in the environment, including: 

Waste management

Housefly larvae can break down a wide range of decaying organic matter, including household waste and animal manure. This helps recycle nutrients and reduce the amount of waste that ends up in landfills. 

Food source

Housefly pupae are a food source for many animals, including birds, reptiles, and insects. Maggots are also used as bait by freshwater fishermen and as feed for tilapia. 

Pollination

Flies pollinate many cultivated crops, including apples, strawberries, carrots, onions, bell peppers, black pepper, and coriander. 

Wound treatment

Maggots can be used to treat gangrenous wounds without antibiotics. Sheep blowfly larvae can be used to treat diabetic ulcers, bedsores, and other wounds. 

However, houseflies can also transmit pathogens and are a nuisance to livestock. The most effective way to control housefly populations is to use an integrated pest management approach that targets both adults and larvae. 

Flies can be harmful to humans and animals in a number of ways, including:

Disease transmission: 

Flies can carry and spread pathogens that cause diseases like food poisoning, dysentery, cholera, typhoid fever, and more. They can contaminate food and surfaces by landing on them, regurgitating, and defecating.

Biting: 

Some types of flies, like mosquitoes, can bite humans and other animals to feed on their blood, which can transmit disease.

Economic losses: 

Flies can cause economic losses.

Nuisance: 

Flies can be a nuisance pest. Flies are attracted to rotting animal and plant waste, which can contain pathogens and parasites. They can also be found around pet waste, which they can carry bacteria from to other places. 

* * *

I can accept that there may be useful purposes for houseflies, but (and this is a BIG BUT) - I draw the line when I find them climbing into bed at night with me. 

So, having done my due diligence to satisfy my curiosity, I can clearly state I am in the category this morning of attempting to control housefly populations. I routinely spend an inordinate amount of time vacuuming up both dead and live houseflies. If you ask me to estimate the number of houseflies I have dispatched to the hell from whence they came into my home during this fall season, my conservative estimate is a thousand million gazillion to date and that's where I lost count.

For wholesale destruction of houseflies, I recommend the use of a fly bomb. My product of choice is always the Hot Shot, distributed by Spectrum Group, a division of United Industries Corporation in St. Louis, MO. It's a simple-to-use fogger you can find at your local grocery store in the pest control aisle. (That tells you all you need to know about categorizing houseflies). It comes in a handy spray can. You hit the trigger at the top after making certain all the windows and doors are closed, then evacuate for three hours. You will return to your home to find at least a thousand million gazillion dead flies everywhere and blessed silence prevails in your home.

Take out your vacuum and commence sucking them all up. It's a task, but compared to putting up with all the annoyance it's a small price to pay for your reclaimed independence, believe me. 

I have looked over the list of useful purposes the common housefly might provide, as cited above, but for me the best houseflies are the dead ones. I have learned that it only takes one male and one female to produce hundreds of larvae, so don't be surprised if you have to repeat the use of the fogger. It's worth it. 

There's another sure cure for ridding yourself of houseflies. 

It's called WINTER. 

"Few, If Any. . ."

I’m awake this morning at 6:00 a.m., still basking in the afterglow of our shared sealing session last night in the Orem Temple. My dear friend Hank Nelson, along with his wife Kristy who was seated at the sealing desk in the office, conducted the session at my request. 

It was a heavenly outing for me, exactly what I prayed it would be. We had 19 of our family members, including Harold and Catherine, acting as proxies for 44 of our deceased ancestors. We sealed couples and children to parents. It was a happy time for all who attended, and some silent tears were shed in acknowledgement of the rich outpouring of the spirit that attended us. I noted every teardrop that fell in quiet reverence.

I will add that I also noted son-in-law Clark’s temple shoes, originally owned by President Harold B. Lee, then by me, now by Clark, and I pondered anew where those shoes have been and what they have surely seen. He first wore them when he was a newly-sustained Apostle in 1941 on April 10th. Their tattered and well-worn appearance testified anew to me of the true calling of living prophets. To qualify for ownership of those shoes one must be a proper size 9, and Clark and I both qualified.

Our session went a little late, since we were the last group to occupy a sealing room last night. We exited the temple in darkness, but a group of young adult young women snapped this picture for us as a treasured memory. 

There are those who have asserted over the years in the Church that we don’t really know whether or not the departed spirits of our family members will accept the proxy work we do in the temples, but I have a different view. 

I remembered this following statement last night, and suggested it to daughter Dianne as we rode down the elevator after the session had concluded, then I checked the reference this morning:

President Wilford W. Woodruff

“’All who have died without a knowledge of this Gospel, who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God; also all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of it, who would have received it with all their hearts, shall be heirs of that kingdom, for I, the Lord, will judge all men according to their works, according to the desire of their hearts.’ [D&C 137:7–9.] So it will be with your fathers. There will be very few, if any, who will not accept the Gospel. … The fathers of this people will embrace the Gospel.” (Millennial Star, May 28, 1894, 339–40, emphasis mine).

Brigham and Wilford in St. George Temple

At the time, President Wilford W. Woodruff had lived to witness the construction of the first four temples in Utah, and dedicated the magnificent Salt Lake Temple that took 40 years to build. He and President Brigham Young had worked in tandem in St. George to fulfill the Prophet Joseph’s request to arrange the temple ceremonies more accurately, and that is exactly what they did.

“President Young has said to us, and it is verily so, if the dead could they would speak in language loud as ten thousand thunders, calling upon the servants of God to rise up and build Temples, magnify their calling and redeem their dead.” (Deseret News: Semi-Weekly, March 26, 1878, 1).

“If [we] knew and understood the feelings of the Prophet Joseph Smith, and those of his brethren associated with him, and the feelings of the millions of the human family who are shut up in their prison houses, we would not tire. … We would labor for the redemption of our dead.” (Deseret News: Semi-Weekly, October 26, 1880, 1).

“The eyes of the heavens are over us; the eyes of God himself, the eyes of every Prophet and Apostle in the spirit world, are watching you, watching this Priesthood, to see what they are doing and what they are going to do. It is of far more importance than we realize and comprehend. Let us awake to the ordinances of the House of God and do our duty, that we may be justified.”  (In Conference Report, October 1897, 47).

Think for a moment how powerful Wilford Woodruff’s statement is that there would be few, if any, of our deceased ancestors who will not accept the fulness of the gospel in the spirit world. 

Those, for example, who rejected the Book of Mormon in this mortal life will surely be attending a class somewhere in the spirit world taught by the Lamanites and the Nephites and all the other “ites” mentioned in the record. Imagine the surprise on the faces of those recalcitrant spirits who hear their firsthand testimonies in the spirit world and ask yourself how they could possibly resist any longer. 

I am a great believer that repentance and progress occurs in the spirit world. We certainly believe people can change here in mortality because we have witnessed it. So why not believe people can and do change in the spirit world? I KNOW they do.

President Russell M. Nelson

It’s why our living prophet today, President Russell M. Nelson, now nearing this 100th birthday on September 9th, is the very embodiment of the leadership President Woodruff foresaw in the building of temples worldwide. And we are living witnesses of the fulfillment of the prophecies of President Woodruff.

“Eternal progression” is a concept that is often misunderstood, more so in years gone by than it is today. I have always valued the perspective of Brigham Young on this topic:

“Instead of pleading with the Lord to bestow more upon you, plead with yourselves to have confidence in yourselves, to have integrity in yourselves, and know when to speak and what to speak, what to reveal, and how to carry yourselves and walk before the Lord. And just as fast as you prove to him that you will preserve everything secret that ought to be — that you will deal out to your neighbors all which you ought, and no more, and learn how to dispense your knowledge to your families, friends, neighbors, and brethren, the Lord will bestow upon you, and give to you, and bestow upon you, until finally he will say to you, ‘You shall never fall; your salvation is sealed unto you; you are sealed up unto eternal life and salvation, through your integrity.’” (Discourses of Brigham Young, 93).  

I have assurances borne to me by the Holy Ghost that we are in the correct path leading to exaltation and eternal life in the highest degree of the Celestial Kingdom. I can never hear those inspired words of the temple sealings without my whole soul reaching out to my Heavenly Father and longing for the fulfillment promised in those sacred ordinances. 

Patsy Goates

I pondered all night last night what Patsy must have surely been feeling as she witnessed her posterity doing that sacred service. I’ll bet she was certainly assisting “at the veil” and hugged and kissed each one we served. Her spirit filled me with that assurance as I laid my head on my pillow later.

Thank you, each one of you in my posterity, who participated. We have done our small part in reaching out to the “ones” who President Nelson invited us to search out and bless with the promises of eternal life. Do not despair or lose faith in family members who may not yet have accepted the gospel. Remember these promises permeate every stage of our existence and hope on without reservation or doubt. These are BIG ideas, truly, and they require BIG and CONTINUING faith in their fulfillment. 

Our forefathers for whom we serve in the temples are the seminal trees from which we sprang - they are the roots and we are the branches. Those roots will flourish when nurtured and groomed with the message of the fulness of the gospel in the spirit world. 

I love you all now and eternally. We will never be separated in this life or the next because of our faith and our faithfulness. We are bound together by sacred and enduring covenants, the keys to which are held by living Apostles and Prophets.