This morning I was in the Jordan River Temple for an endowment session. I officiated for Michael Jackson (no, not THAT one), born 1875 in Oregon. No one had performed temple ordinances for him since 2004! It was thrilling to be there in a full house session filled with octogenarians. I counted four people with something other than white hair.
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| The Beach Boys, circa 60s |
For some unknown reason I had the Beatles and the Beach Boys on my mind this morning. To the uninitiated, those were the two rival bands competing for the affections of my teenaged counterparts in the Sixties while we were in high school. The debates raged on and on among us over which was the better band. I favored the clean-cut California Beach Boys to the mop-haired Beatles from Liverpool, England. The Beatles were an acquired taste for me that became more palatable when I became a missionary assigned to the Wirral Peninsula near Liverpool as a member of the Mormon Yankees baseball team. I toured all their haunts in and around Liverpool where they all hailed from.
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| The Beatles |
This morning reminded me once again, as I always am, that our Father in Heaven had a choice to make between two sons who would put themselves forward to implement the Father’s plan for His children. His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, offered simply, “Father, send me. Thy will be done.” Lucifer offered his guarantee that “not one soul would be lost.” Moral agency, the freedom to CHOOSE, was favored in the implementation of the Father’s plan, and He chose Jehovah accompanied by the law of sacrifice to ensure our moral agency. The Atonement was the outcome.
Humorously, after the session had concluded, I was in the restroom washing my hands as I was leaving. An elderly temple ordinance worker said, noting which basin I had used, “Was the water colder down there?” To which I replied, “Yes.” “Well, up on this end,” he informed me, “the water’s warmer because this end represents the Celestial Kingdom, but down there you were in the Telestial Kingdom.” Have to admit, no one had EVER explained that phenomenon to me before!
In the chapel before the session began, I was sitting quietly listening to organ music of the hymns being played by an elderly little sister who is blind. It was heavenly to listen to her as not one flawed note came out of her! I was so grateful that at her advanced age she was sharing her talents with all of us.
In this life we are confronted with choices to make, mostly insignificant and unimportant little choices that amount to nothing more than personal preferences over a myriad of topics. It’s trivial pursuit at its finest.
However, have you noticed the tendency of others around you to make comparisons about nearly everything out there? Sometimes they will compare people against one another. Often the comparisons are harsh and unforgiving. You know what I’m talking about, because when you hear others make those comparisons pitting one person against another, you often just cringe and want to withdraw immediately rather than engage in the unfairness of it all. It just doesn’t feel right, does it? And when that happens you can’t get out of the conversation quickly enough.
If those comparisons persist unchecked, particularly as it pertains to our Father in Heaven’s children, or worse, our dearest family members, then harsh judgments can often ensue and then alienation creeps in to our thinking. Often we reject them for a season and refuse to engage further. Judgments can hurt and are often unforgiving and frequently permanent. I know children in my extended family who are now completely alienated from their parents and haven’t spoken to them for many years now. I plead with all of us this afternoon to beware and be cautious that such comparisons and judgments do not overtake our love for one another.
Over a space of twenty years Patsy and I produced offspring, resulting in thirteen live births and six miscarriages. To say she was prolific would be an understatement! As a result, our family is an outstanding representation of personalities, characteristics, talents and tendencies that is truly magnificent and diverse to behold at this point as they have all matured into capable adults. We now have grandchildren and great-grandchildren who perpetuate this marvelous array of spirits among us.
Rather than seeking for unanimity of sameness and conformity with some unwieldy standard of homogeneity, I pray we may continue to enthusiastically embrace one another despite our obvious and unique differences. It is the gold standard of gospel covenants that I encounter in the temple each time I attend that must be the governing principles we seek.
The law of obedience.
The law of sacrifice.
The law of the gospel of Jesus Christ.
The law of chastity.
The law of consecration.
These are the five laws I routinely review each time I attend the temple, as I did today.
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| Jordan River Temple |
Yes, that’s an ambulance you can see parked outside the temple. In our jam-packed session a good brother collapsed as he attempted to join the prayer circle. Dramatic happening, but he was seated again when he recovered consciousness and was later taken away in the ambulance for observation. I was told he completed the session after I had gone through the veil.
I heard two brethren in the Celestial Room discussing the relative merits of their walkers. They were comparing and contrasting (sounded more like a debate to me) the various features, not the most spiritual topic they could have selected for their surrounding environs, but that’s just me making a judgment, isn’t it?
Then as I was exiting the parking lot, I noted my near-empty gas tank crying out for attention with a blinking light. I drove past several gas stations posting competing prices between $4.99 down to $4.79 along my way to Costco, where today’s price was a “paltry” $4.49. My easy comparisons led to an informed judgment for the winning low price.
Let me conclude with one final thought for each of us. When you are tempted to speak out loud a comparison between two family members you love, even something that might seem like it’s trivial, stop yourself and ask, “If I speak this thought out loud right now, am I being judgmental to the detriment of this person and the one to whom I’m speaking?” I might gently suggest your judgments are not always based upon all the facts that, if fully known to you, would render a different conclusion.
One of my Mother’s well-worn mantras was, “If you can’t say something nice, don’t say anything at all!”
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| Thumper said it. . . |
She was quoting Bambi’s forest companion Thumper. Still pretty good advice today, though none of you would know anything about Bambi and Thumper, just like few of you would remember seeing the Beach Boys live in concert at Lagoon like I did back in the days when they performed there.
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