Quote of the Day

Just when I think I've seen it all about John Wooden, I run across something new that gives me new appreciation for the legendary coach from UCLA. Today's quote comes from him. You can read more about him and his legacy here:

"Don't measure yourself by what you have accomplished, but by what you should have accomplished with your ability." ~ John Wooden

The Most Intelligent SOTU Speech

Call me stupid if you wish, but the most intelligent speech last night didn't come from the POTUS. I didn't even bother to tune in to any of it. This morning, I downloaded Senator Mike Lee's response, and I believe (without even referencing BHO's "official" SOTU speech) there couldn't be a more well-thought-out approach than Lee's.

The only question remains whether "lofty rhetoric" from an empty suit will continue to persuade Americans or not. I pray IT WILL NOT.

Anneliese Audrey Goates

Thursday morning brought to a close a bittersweet chapter in the lives of our son Jake and wife Heidi, along with their young daughter Jillian. I made reference several weeks ago to their challenges in a previous blog post entitled, "When Sore Trials Come Upon You".

Heidi was pregnant with their second child and they went for a routine ultrasound to determine the sex of the baby. Instead, as part of the ultrasound exam they had received a chilling diagnosis about their daughter intrauterine - she would be an anencephaly baby. They were thrown into a vortex of uncertainty, sorrow, anger and instant grieving, even though the baby hadn't been born yet. Her birth would also mean a simultaneous funeral if she made it full-term.

Patiently, riding a roller coaster of emotions that took them into spiritual heights and plunged them into the darkest abyss, they waded through the ensuing weeks never knowing what the final outcome might look like.

On Thursday morning we received a text message that Heidi's waters had broken and they were on the way to the hospital nine weeks ahead of her due date. At Jake's request, we all dropped to our knees as a family that morning, knowing the outcome of this impending early delivery would bring additional complications, but petitioning Heavenly Father they might have the privilege of holding a live infant long enough for her to be given a name and a father's blessing by Jake.

As we drove the hour to Salt Lake, little Anneliese made her unscheduled appearance. Jake's text said simply, "She's here." She was alive and struggling for life, but ALIVE! I texted back, "MIRACLE!" It was a miracle we had humbly sought together as a united family on their behalf. "She's a little fighter," Jake texted. "She's trying to wait long enough for you to get here so she can meet you." Forty-five minutes later, now tied up in rush hour traffic along Foothill Blvd. in Salt Lake, we received another text, "She's gone."

We had "lived" her life with her vicariously in the car en route to the hospital through our tears, but Jake and Heidi had the exhilaration of holding her for those precious 45 minutes. We arrived shortly after she had expired. Anneliese is our 44th grandchild. She was a beautiful little doll, perfectly formed, still soft and pink with a petite little doll face resembling her sister and Mother. She weighed only 2.2 pounds and was 13 inches long.

In the delivery room as I held her lifeless little body and gazed upon her face, I felt I had always known her as the adult spirit she is. She came momentarily to earth to join their eternal family, and stayed only long enough to claim her mortal body then return home again. In the spirit world someday we will meet again, and in the resurrection her little body will come forth as it will go into the grave on Monday after her funeral. Heidi will hold her once again in her arms and have the blessing of seeing her physical body grow and blossom into its "proper and perfect frame". (See Alma 40:23).

Their hospital room that morning was full of light, hope and gratitude. What could obviously seem like a tragedy to some was experienced as awareness of the great plan of happiness. Some things we know as an intellectual verity. Other things we know because we have lived through them and embraced them for the gift of spiritual knowledge that transcends merely an intellectual possibility. And now they KNEW.

Jake sent out an e-mail this morning describing their experience in part:

Dear Family and Friends,

Our little angel's early arrival on Thursday has been a very sweet experience and a heaven-sent life we were fortunate enough to experience and welcome into our family. While gearing up for her arrival and departure we initially thought we wanted to keep this a very intimate occasion with only a graveside service and family lunch, but after meeting our little Anneliese, we feel we should celebrate the great blessing it has been for her to receive a physical body as part of our Heavenly Father's eternal plan of happiness.

We realize this is short notice, so please don't feel obligated, but we would like to invite each of you, and any others who may not be on this email who you feel should know, to attend her little celebration at our chapel at 10am on Monday January 27th. Heidi and I would like to share our experience of bringing this sweet spirit into the world. It would not have been possible without all of your support along the way and we'd be very ungrateful to not express our appreciation for your love. We are so grateful for the prayers, thoughts, emails, texts, cards, and letters as we've sought to grow our family over the years, especially during this pregnancy.

We love you all and consider ourselves blessed to have you in our lives. If you didn't see our posts on social media, we'd also like to share with you our blog, where Heidi began to share this journey, and will continue to do so.

We are comforted to know Anneliese is waiting on the other side of the veil for us to reunite with her again some day. We're so grateful for Jesus Christ and his victory over death that we might all live again beyond the grave, and for the restoration of his gospel and priesthood on the earth that seals families together forever. It is comforting to know we have been given the opportunity to hold her in our arms again some day, and we pray we might be better people each day of our lives until the great day of resurrection comes.

All our love,

Jake, Heidi, Jillian and Anneliese Goates

The Old Morality

I admit it freely - I am a cultural laggard. When you ask me to name a current pop icon in any venue, I am stumped for an answer. My idea of cutting edge entertainment these days is Michael Buble, and he's a throwback to Frank Sinatra.

I watch a lot of old movies these days with my dear wife. TCM is our very favorite cable channel. That's Turner Classic Movies for the uninitiated. During the Christmas holidays we watched sappy, emotionally-charged melodramas on the Hallmark Channel, so predictable it felt like a cookie-cutter script factory was hard at work behind the scenes. Because I now own one, I was stunned to observe how many of the heroes in those movies also drove the Toyota Prius. So maybe at least in that one respect I can qualify as an "early adopter" of a cutting edge technology. But to give you some idea of the real me, the last movie we saw in a theater was "Saving Mr. Banks". I'm not ashamed to admit I shed tears watching Emma Thompson's portrayal of the stiff upper lipped Englishwoman, P.L. Travers (she was really Australian), who brought the character of Mary Poppins to life in her books. So cutting edge, right?

I offer this background to illustrate why I am dragging my feet on same-sex marriage initiatives that will be wending their way through the courts for as far as the eye can see into the future. I have tried to make clear in previous posts to this page that I am intimately familiar with the personal struggles of people with same-sex attractions. Though I am not a pop culture progressive liberal-minded individual, I am also not a homophobic bigot either. I have empathy for those who are confused by this issue.

My purpose today is to state the stark contrasts I see in the way the debate keeps playing out - legal activists pitted against (sometimes) self-righteous moralists. While those who would lobby for legal rights in the courts have made their arguments based primarily upon an "equal rights" and "equal protection" Constitutional platform, and that sounds perfectly legitimate in many minds, what has gone missing and is completely obscured is the inefficiency of the legal system to rule in matters with a moral component as religiously charged as homosexuality. Those who take the moral side, arguing that homosexuality is sin, fail to recognize the legal courts and the courts of public opinion have never been the place for making the moral argument stick. Morality is something quite separate and apart from legal machinations, and we would do well to keep them distinctly separate.

When I was a boy I remember a weak argument I always made with my Mother. I would say, citing some cool new thing "everyone" was doing, "But Mom, everybody's got one, or is doing it, or is going to it, or is (fill in the blank)." To which she would invariably respond, "David, just because everyone is doing it doesn't make it right." Ah, the indispensable wisdom of Mom.

America is now on the precipice of slipping off its perch as a moral beacon for the world. Some would argue America never was moral and never should be judged on that basis. Very well, have it your way if you wish. However, our early Founders spoke about the need for Americans to remain a moral people, because only a moral people could stand a chance of self-governance. They set an admirable, though not flawless, example for us to follow. At their core, however, these were remarkable men who acknowledged the right to freedom was granted by an all-wise Providence who was the Lawgiver. I have written extensively in many past blog posts about them. Moral agency was enthroned in the founding documents as the means through which freedom won in such a bloody enterprise as the Revolutionary War could be maintained. It was from God we gleaned our rights as free men, they told us, and from no other source. They argued freedom could not be obtained in any other way and from any other fountainhead.

Fast forward to 2014. God's laws have never changed. Policies, practices, procedures and politics have changed. Many of the practices of the past, while legal, were never moral. Slavery is one. Alcohol is another. Nazism and Adolf Hitler flourished in Germany before World War II in an environment legally permitting their existence. Cigarettes are legal, but all of these stand on weak ground when making a moral judgment. Apartheid in South Africa was legal until Nelson Mandela challenged the law with a more well-defined moral argument. Walter Williams correctly observed, "Legality, alone, cannot be the talisman of moral people." He also argues that private immorality (homosexuality) cannot suddenly somehow become moral just because it is openly practiced collectively and gains widespread acceptance. None of those facts change the underlying core reality it is morally wrong. Does the fact that marijuana has been declared legal in some states change smoking it into a moral activity merely because the courts have ruled it is legal and people now line up at a retail outlet to purchase it instead of in some back alley? Does same sex marriage, permitted in some states as legal, now alter the moral requirement of God?

Indeed, all those things are always in transition. Just because Obamacare is the law of the land today, is it morally defensible to fund it with the most massive theft of personal wealth ever attempted by economic redistribution? I hope Richard Lugar (former Republican Senator from Indiana) is right. The fundamental moral principles upon which America was founded are anchored in the bedrock principle of moral agency - the freedom to make moral judgments for the benefit of individuals and the whole society.

The moral law of sexual purity before and during marriage remains valid. The Church cannot condone immorality in any form it takes. Because we are all sinners and come short of the mark, Christ's atonement cleanses those who purify themselves in His perfection. (Moroni 10:32-33). The leaders of the Church, while sympathetic to the struggles of those with same-sex attraction, are not empowered nor authorized to alter the moral law upon which the plan of salvation rests, and in The Family: A Proclamation to the World (1995), they made the eternal law explicit and understandable. Gender differences are foreordained and were in place in our pre-existent unembodied spirits, just as they are in our mortal bodies now, and will be in our disembodied spirits awaiting our resurrected bodies hereafter. Neither can the leaders of the Church give a free pass to this supposed "protected class" of sinners over that imaginary "unprotected class." We are all sinners. All are subject to the principle of repentance. None is exempt. No One. So plain is that straight-forward declaration, it would seem, no one reading it could possibly misunderstand. The gospel of Jesus Christ is true.

But the debate rages on, even among those in the Church who should know better. I would suggest there is little that can be done in the courtroom of popular opinion or within the courthouse to alter wrong-headed thinking on this topic. The moral agency to make errors in judgment is also part of the plan of salvation. The latter-day reality has come when homosexuality is as rampant and acceptable as it was in the days of Sodom and Gomorrah, and one can only speculate on how wicked the world must become before it is ultimately cleansed by fire.

The old morality is still the new morality and it is chiseled in stone. It has never changed. The requirements for happiness here and hereafter will never change. But don't be one of those who is beguiled by the siren call of immorality disguised as acceptance and tolerance at the expense of your own moral convictions. You hold fast to what you know is true, even if you lose badly in the court of public opinion.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks

Elder Dallin H. Oaks framed this debate very well in his last General Conference sermon, entitled "No Other Gods":

"There are many political and social pressures for legal and policy changes to establish behaviors contrary to God’s decrees about sexual morality and contrary to the eternal nature and purposes of marriage and childbearing. These pressures have already authorized same-gender marriages in various states and nations. Other pressures would confuse gender or homogenize those differences between men and women that are essential to accomplish God’s great plan of happiness.

"Our understanding of God’s plan and His doctrine gives us an eternal perspective that does not allow us to condone such behaviors or to find justification in the laws that permit them. And, unlike other organizations that can change their policies and even their doctrines, our policies are determined by the truths God has identified as unchangeable.

"Our twelfth article of faith states our belief in being subject to civil authority and “in obeying, honoring, and sustaining the law.” But man’s laws cannot make moral what God has declared immoral. Commitment to our highest priority — to love and serve God — requires that we look to His law for our standard of behavior. For example, we remain under divine command not to commit adultery or fornication even when those acts are no longer crimes under the laws of the states or countries where we reside. Similarly, laws legalizing so-called “same-sex marriage” do not change God’s law of marriage or His commandments and our standards concerning it. We remain under covenant to love God and keep His commandments and to refrain from serving other gods and priorities — even those becoming popular in our particular time and place." (emphasis mine).

If you are living the moral law of chastity, I would predict you will never have the peace you seek in hoping the world will someday turn to righteousness because you believe the way you do in your heart of hearts. As in the days of Noah, the wicked will cling steadfastly to their wickedness and will be in denial until the floods of anger flow freely and they seek, too late, to be admitted into the sanctuary of the ark. In that day the flood took them into the spirit world where they could finally be in a place to learn the truths of the gospel.

In the latter days, when we live upon the earth, the unquenchable fire of destruction will also overtake the world, and the cleansing will be just as widespread, "equal rights" and "equal protection under the law" handed down by the suborned courts notwithstanding.

Understanding Who We Are (and WHOSE We Are)

This morning we had an unusual Sabbath Day, and I described it in an e-mail to our children and grandchildren:

It doesn't happen often, but today we awoke to blizzard-like conditions at the Ranch. The wind had blown so hard during the night Mom had trouble sleeping. (I didn't). The snow was blowing and drifting to a point the road was indistinguishable. I estimated the drifts were two feet deep in some places. It's still snowing and our plow guy won't get here until this afternoon when it stops. So we stayed home and taught one another. We had a priesthood/Relief Society lesson, then a Sunday School lesson. 

President Harold B. Lee

Maybe you wouldn't know it unless a Sunday School teacher showed it to you, but today's Old Testament Sunday School lesson featured a video snippet from Grandfather Lee's opening sermon in the Tabernacle on October 5, 1973. He reminded us our station in mortality comes to us as a reward for our faithfulness in the pre-existence, a condition to which we were foreordained. And may I hasten to add, I believe "the noble and great ones" are the faithful sons and daughters who have embraced the covenants, NOT exclusively the leaders of the Church, as we are sometimes taught. We are foreordained to be parents in the new and everlasting covenant of marriage, united with our posterity in that covenant. Grandfather concluded with these words that might be as real and timely today as they were when he uttered them:

It was George Bernard Shaw who said, “If we all realized that we were the children of one father, we would stop shouting at each other as much as we do.”

Now, as I come to the closing of this address, I trust that I might have given to you and others who have not yet listened to such counsel, something to stimulate some sober thinking as to who you are and from whence you came; and, in so doing, that I may have stirred up within your soul the determination to begin now to show an increased self-respect and reverence for the temple of God, your human body, wherein dwells a heavenly spirit. I would charge you to say again and again to yourselves, as the Primary organization has taught the children to sing “I am a [son or a daughter] of God” and by so doing, begin today to live closer to those ideals which will make your life happier and more fruitful because of an awakened realization of who you are.

This talk was his opening address at his final General Conference in October, 1973. Two and a half months later he was dead on December 26th. When we come to love ourselves for who we are (and WHOSE we are) - foreordained sons and daughters of God - EVERYTHING changes - how we view ourselves, how we treat others we love around us, and how we treat total strangers. 

His message uplifted us this morning as Mom and I studied and taught one another. Hopefully, you have all had a similar experience today.

Love and blessings,

Dad