Mortality - Keep Building in Faith

I have lived long enough to know something about the ironies of life. We recently celebrated my father's 93rd birthday with a quiet homemade dinner of Dad's favorites. Then he engaged with us in a light-hearted banter about what he should say to people when they ask, "How are you doing?" Does he give them a blow by blow account of all his ailments? Or is it best to answer with the usual, "Fine," which in his case is a bald-faced lie. It's a dilemma for an old man who hesitates to buy green bananas these days because he may not live long enough to enjoy them. I hasten to assure my readers there is no imminent threat to him that we know about, but at age 93 anything can happen as he searches for the exit door to mortality.

Four generations removed from old age is our newest addition to our family, little Vivienne, who was admitted today to Primary Children's Hospital for closer observation. She was born prematurely at the U of U Medical Center last week at 26 weeks, and is now valiantly clinging to life in her fragile little frame and fighting an intestinal infection. We are united in our fasting and prayers on her behalf again today as a family. In her case, unlike Dad's, we pray she may stay with us on this side of the veil and not be shown the exit door quite yet. We long for a miraculous outcome, that she may rid her body of this infection and prosper so she may grow to adulthood. We believe in miracles.

Whatever the outcome in either Dad's or Vivienne's case, mortality comes in long and short versions. I have been pondering today just how imperative the constancy and consistency of our faith in God must become regardless of the details of our individual lives. We really have very little control over the outcomes in mortality. Just when it appears we have taken control of our lives and things are rolling along smoothly, it seems conditions change abruptly and sometimes unexpectedly for the worse, and our dependency on God becomes paramount. In those times when we say to ourselves, "I've got this one, God," we are brought up short and our faith in Him is put to a test not of man's devising that buckles our knees under the weight of the burden. It is all part of our mortal existence.

For some reason this morning, I was drawn to the historical record of the early pioneers who settled the Salt Lake Valley for an example of perseverance and diligence in the face of almost insurmountable opposition and long odds for a successful and happy outcome. Despite all their hardships, stout pioneers were able to sing in unison, "All is well, all is well."

President Brigham Young

On July 28, 1847, four days after his arrival in the valley of the Great Salt Lake, President Brigham Young stood upon the exact spot now occupied by the iconic Salt Lake Temple and boldly declared to his companions who had barely managed to survive the long prairie and steep mountain trek, "Here [we will build] the Temple of our God!" (James H. Anderson, "The Salt Lake Temple," Contributor 6 [April 1893]: 243).

The southeast corner of the temple grounds in Salt Lake City forms the baseline and meridian on the original plats as designed by Brigham Young. All addresses radiate outward from that point in all four directions, and Temple Square as it later came to be known covers an eighth of a square mile. At the time the pioneers were destitute, but the first thing Brigham Young said they would do is build a temple that would stand through the Millennium and beyond into eternity. There was no thought about the money they didn't have, the timbers that hadn't been located, or where the granite would come from. No thought was given just yet to how they would house themselves during the upcoming winter. They had no way of knowing crickets would descend and devour their first crops. Nor could they have known the United States Army would be dispatched to assure their destruction. Instead, they broke ground, unaware that the vision of Brigham Young would take 40 years to materialize.

So it is with us. Dad's life today stands as a testament to moving ahead in faith without knowing the end result. The ravages of World War II disrupted many millions of lives. Uncertainty about the future was rampant. Predictions of the Second Coming being imminent were pervasive. Things haven't changed much, it seems, as Vivienne's uncertain future in 2015 also hangs in the balance today. I wonder, will we shrink in fear of the unknown, or will we persist in faith and triumph over mortality's demands despite the opposition?

The work on the Salt Lake Temple seems so analogous to the work we put into our own lives. The excavation for the basement required hand digging trenches that were twenty feet wide and sixteen feet deep. The rock beneath the desert hard pan soil seemed immovable. It is estimated the digging for the foundation required nine thousand man days of labor. When they saw the magnitude of what Brother Brigham was envisioning, some must have faltered wondering why it had to be so big and if his vision of futurity were somehow faulty and over-reaching.

Salt Lake Temple

But Brigham Young had a vision. He expressed it to our rugged pioneer ancestors in these words: "I do not like to prophesy much, . . . but I will venture to guess that this day, and the work we have performed on it, will long be remembered by this people, and be sounded as with a trumpet's voice throughout the world. . . . Five years ago last July I was here, and saw in the spirit the Temple. [I stood] not ten feet from where we have laid the chief corner stone. I have not inquired what kind of a temple we should build. Why? Because it was [fully] represented before me." (Anderson, Contributor, 257-58).

As we set about to live our faithful lives in mortality, I am also reminded we come in for our share of adversity and opposition, just as Brigham Young observed, "We never began to build [any] temple without the bells of hell beginning to ring." (Discourses of Brigham Young, Deseret Book, 1973, 410). That principle is true of temples like our physical bodies of flesh, blood and bone, and temples made of granite.

When the foundation work was done, Johnston's Army set out for the Salt Lake Valley to go to war with "the Mormons." Despite all the hard work they had done to date, President Young made provisions to evacuate and, if necessary, to destroy the entire city behind them to avoid armed conflict. The hole and the footings and foundation were buried again so the temple site looked like an open field. How disheartening to make such a diligent and faith-filled beginning, only to suffer the setback because of the imposition of others. How much like that is our own lives? We chart a course, we take control, we move ahead, only to be pushed back to the starting line again and again.

Once the threat of war subsided and the Army left, the pioneers returned to their homes and then painstakingly began uncovering the foundation and removing all the material from the excavated basement structure. To their dismay they discovered the sandstone had cracked and also had to be removed. Granite was offered as the preferred building blocks, but the materials were twenty miles away in Little Cottonwood Canyon. Imagine the degree of difficulty! Precise design and dimensions of every one of the thousands of granite stones to be used had to be meticulously measured in the architect's office and then shaped individually by skilled stone cutters. Progress was excruciatingly slow and tedious. The first layer of six hundred stones took three years to complete. It seemed no one could discern any progress being made at all. Have you ever felt progress in your own life was seemingly impossible? I have likened progress in my life to watching my toenails grow. It's imperceptible. You seem to take one step forward and two steps back. Discouragement can often become our constant companion. The opposition we face tends to wilt our faith and the temptation to curse God and quit trying so hard becomes overwhelming at times.

But the persistent Saints of those early days never stopped trying and coming up with new and ingenious ideas. A canal on which to convey the massive granite blocks was begun and a great deal of labor and money expended on it, but it was finally aborted. Other ideas were tried and abandoned, but eventually using teams of oxen and reinforced wagons proved to be the preferred method. Throughout two decades, teams of oxen could be seen almost every day of the year toiling to haul one massive granite block to the temple site.

Then came the arrival of the railroad during that time. Workers abandoned the temple for three years to work for the more lucrative wages offered by the railroad companies. Twice during those years, grasshopper invasions sent the workers into full-time summer combat with the insects.

By mid-1871, fully two decades and untold misery after it had been begun, the walls of the temple were barely visible above ground. Through all those years, President Young seemed to be in no hurry. "The Temple will be built as soon as we are prepared to use it," he often said. His faith was so unwavering, and his vision of futurity so fixed in his mind that amid all the hardships they were suffering he announced plans to build temples in St. George, Manti and Logan. Who of us is left with an excuse for faltering under the weight of our burdens in the face of such faith, diligence and commitment to a dream like that?

"Can you accomplish the work, you Latter-day Saints of these several counties?" he asked. And then, not waiting for their reply, he affirmed, "Yes; that is a question I can answer readily. You are perfectly able to do it. The question is, have you the necessary faith? Have you sufficient of the Spirit of God in your hearts to say, yes, by the help of God our Father we will erect these buildings to his name? . . . Go to now, with your might and with your means and finish this Temple." (Anderson, Contributor, 267). When I look for examples of inspired leadership, I seldom have to look beyond Brigham Young. Our pioneer ancestors never flinched nor doubted. They went forward in faith with their might and put to rest their doubts and fears. And so must we.

When President Brigham Young died in 1877, the temple was not yet twenty feet above the ground. Ten years later, his successor, President John Taylor, and the temple's original architect, Truman O. Angell, were dead as well. The side walls were finally up to the square, ready for construction of the roof.

Complicating progress in the final stages of completion was the imposition by Congress of the infamous Edmunds-Tucker Act. It had the effect of disincorporating The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and putting the Church into receivership. The U.S. Marshal, under a court order, seized the temple. The object of their blood, sweat and tears was wrested away from them and put into the hands of their enemies, the very group who had often boasted that the Latter-day Saints would never be permitted to finish the building.

But in this latter-day extremity, God was also with these modern children of Israel, as He always has been and always will be. They did all they could do and left the rest in His hands. Then the Red Sea parted before them, and they walked through on firm, dry ground.

On April 6, 1893, the Saints as a body were filled with joy. After 40 long years they had cut out of the mountain a granite temple that would become their offering, a mountain of the Lord, where He could reside. The streets that day were jammed with upwards of 50,000 people.

Inside the Tabernacle President Wilford Woodruff, visibly moved by the significance of the moment, said: "If there is any scene on the face of this earth that will attract the attention of the God of heaven and the heavenly host, it is the one before us today — the assembling of this people, the shout of 'Hosanna!' the laying of the topstone of this Temple in honor to our God." (Anderson, Contributor, 270). Then, moving outside, he laid the capstone in place exactly at high noon.

In the writing of one who was there, "The scene that followed is beyond the power of language to describe." Lorenzo Snow, beloved president of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles, came forward to lead the Saints in the Hosanna Shout. Every hand held a handkerchief and every eye was filled with tears. One said the very "ground seemed to tremble with the volume of the sound" which echoed off the tops of the mountains. "A grander or more imposing spectacle than this ceremony of laying the Temple capstone is not recorded in history." (Anderson, Contributor, 273). It was finally and forever finished.

The prestigious Scientific American referred to this majestic new edifice as a "monument to Mormon perseverance." And so it was. Blood, toil, tears, and sweat.

The best things in life are always worth finishing. "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). You are worth finishing. As long and laborious as our efforts to build our lives may seem in mortality, may God grant us the courage of our pioneer ancestors to keep shaping and setting our stones in place to make of our faith and our diligence "a grand and imposing spectacle."

Whether we are at the end of our mortal path or the very beginning, there is life on the other side of the veil in both directions for as far as our minds can imagine. I pray we may take advantage of every opportunity to learn and grow, dream our dreams, see visions of futurity to bless our families, work toward their realization, wait patiently when we have no other choice, lean on our sword and rest a while when we must, but get up and fight again.

It is not unimaginable that like Brigham Young, we may not live in morality long enough to see the completion of all our dreams in our lifetime. But if we live well, work in faith and build something lasting, our children will, or our children's children will, until finally we, with all of them, can stand by and see the salvation of our God. He will surely crown our efforts with eternal life as he did Father Abraham who expended the last ounce of his faith after waiting 90 long years for posterity. . .

But today we wait upon God with our faith in tact for a miracle if it be His will. And we submit to yet another Abrahamic test.

A Parable of Life

Helen and Brent Goates, 1975

Continuing his semi-annual tradition of a Conference missive to his former missionaries in the old California Arcadia Mission, my father writes this time about life and football:

Welcome back, dear October –

My, how we’ve missed you! Renowned for more than just General Conference, October’s refreshing breezes with a slight bite to them proclaim it is also football season. You can smell football in the air.

Maybe it’s just the surcease from the hottest summer ever recorded in Utah, but those delightful cool breezes invite the thought of a sizzling hot dog while we can now enjoy being outdoor spectators again.

As October warps into November, it brings childhood memories back to me of kicking multi-colored leaves underfoot, as I held tightly to my sports editor father’s hand (he carried his portable typewriter in the other hand) and he guided me up the ramps of the University of Utah stadium to the press box. That set up a pattern that would continue, and I never missed a “U” home game from the press box until I was old enough to leave for the mission field. In those days we would never think of having Thanksgiving dinner until after the rivalry Utah vs. Utah State football game was played.

But those days are near forgotten memories now. The cherished days of brisk but delightful afternoon football games have all but disappeared, victims of the money-driven dominance of television schedules that are insane. Last year in Provo, Utah, for example, we had 65,000 BYU fans acting like Eskimos, trying to survive a game that started at 11 p.m. and lasted well into the Sabbath. 

University of Utah's faithful 45,000 came to a night game in a snowstorm which finally relented well past midnight. 

When Utah State plays Colorado State this year on November 23 in Logan, you can bet your sheepskin boots it will be more than nippy. If famous canyon winds arise, you know there will be 25,000 numbed fans taking on the appearance of human icicles.

Where have common sense and the “good old days” gone? Soon an entire generation of sporting fans will never have known how wonderful football games can be in the brisk, warming afternoon sun. This is, in my opinion, too high a price to pay for allowing television to command the ubiquitous rising costs of collegiate athletic expenditures.

BUT – what would you think if you saw a football game being played between the white helmets and the black helmets in the most absurd conditions imaginable, including all the natural disasters like earthquakes, tsunamis, volcanoes, hurricanes, tornadoes and wildfires? In these terrible, sloppy conditions of wet and cold, the teams surged back and forth, neither one winning or losing, but taking turns leading and then falling behind again.

You see a player injured, hauled out of the battle on a stretcher. The ambulance crew comes and you hear them say, “It’s too late; he’s gone,” and immediately a replacement comes to take his place. Similar replacements keep coming and coming, and the struggle continues. It all seems so aimless. So you go to the Head Coach and say, “Stop it! It’s so senseless. No team is winning or losing, so why do you let it go on?”

But the Head Coach answers by calmly pointing to a long, long bench of players as far as the eye can behold, and says, “All of these players have a right to have their time on the field of battle, so they can be tested under conditions both favorable and unfavorable, of winning or losing. They are all growing and shall only be able to perfect themselves under game conditions where they can participate against the stern realities of forces both good and bad.”

Now that you understand the purpose of the game of life and the plan of the Head Coach, why do you get so upset about the way the game is being played? It now seems somewhat more reasonable why God would place us in a world that permits so many forms of evil and why we would have willingly agreed in the beginning to enter such a violent world.

"First, we must remember that the divine creative process is ongoing. The record of creation in the Book of Moses describes the creative cycle twice, the first a spiritual creation and the second physically. However, day seven, the day that follows the completion of creation and God’s rest, is described only once. So day seven in real time has not yet arrived. We still live in day six, when the creation of humanity is unfinished. This helps me to understand the continued existence of chaos and injustice and helps also to alleviate my resultant tensions.

"Next, it is important to comprehend that many virtues linked to the plan of salvation are such virtues that depend upon the prior existence, or even the coexistence of a vice. I can forgive someone only if I have first been sinned against. Likewise, unless I am allowed to sin against my brother, I will never have the opportunity to experience forgiveness from him. Think of the attributes praised by Jesus in the Beatitudes and those required for membership in the Church by Alma at the waters of Mormon. They are virtues whose very existence depends upon the pre-existence of vice. We cannot bear each other’s burden if such burdens didn’t exist. We cannot be comforted if we didn’t know sorrow. We can be generous only if there is someone in need. Mercy can be granted only to someone who is undeserving. Peacemakers can exist only in a world of conflict. Reconciliation can occur only where there is contention. Even though these virtues are the pillars of Christianity, they depend upon the coexistence of vices. Remove the evil and the suffering or the injustice from this world, and these virtues are all but lost." (John Sutton Welch, “Why Bad Things Happen at All”, BYU Studies 42, no. 2 [2003] 75 - 90).

In these times of hardship we are drawn to God for help, comfort and support. Pain and agony allow us to empathize with each other, draw closer to one another and serve our fellowmen. It also changes our perspective of God. Instead of seeing Him as a cruel schoolmaster, we know He is a loving parent, willing to support us, sharing our successes and disappointments, even like Jesus did with Lazarus’s sisters, and be assured that adversity and chaos are just a part of this creative season. Order and justice will be established in day seven ahead in the millennial or celestial age.

Of His ultimate triumph over Satan and the elimination of his opposition in all things we can be assured. Let us prove faithful to the end, ever-believing, ever-faithful, and ever anxious to lift the burdens from those suffering in this intentionally embattled world.

                                                                                         
Always, your friend,

President L. Brent Goates

Life More Sweet than Bitter

Maurice Warshaw, third from left

I'm borrowing today's title headline from the autobiography of one of Utah's business icons, Maurice Warshaw. I'll never know how the man ended up in Mormon-laden Utah, and he was the first Jew I ever knew.

I knew Maurice Warshaw well, because I delivered his newspaper to their apartment door every morning. When I knew the Warshaws, they lived in the then-upscale University Heights Apartments, a building that still stands today on the west side of 13th East between 100 and 200 South. He appreciated the fact that I took the newspaper to their door in a multi-floor apartment building instead of just leaving it in a pile with others who subscribed in the building, and he tipped me routinely for good service. He taught me what good service meant.

I eventually made it a standard practice to hand-deliver everyone's newspaper in the building. He knew and appreciated good service when he found it, and he encouraged me at a young age to go out of my way to work a little harder, care a little more, and do a little better than what was expected. I loved Mrs. Warshaw too, with her flaming red hair, probably the first woman I ever remember who dyed her hair. She got every nickel's worth out of that red hair dye!

Born in 1898 in Dubossar, southern Ukraine, Russia, the son of a prosperous Jewish food broker and community leader, Maurice was named Samuel Warshawsky at birth. His family emigrated to America because of the horrors of the Russo-Japanese War and the predictable hatred aimed at Jews. They journeyed to Kishinev, where they hid for seventeen days in a friend's basement. Maurice's father left the family in Kishinev to proceed to the United States on his own. Maurice's step-mother saw that the rest of the family made it to safety, first to Poland and then to Bremen, Germany.

The family booked passage in steerage on the SS Bremen for the nineteen-day voyage to America. After processing through Ellis Island, the family boarded a train at Grand Central Station for Philadelphia and a reunion with Maurice's older brother and father. For seven years the family lived in the tenements of Philadelphia in conditions that were worse than in Russia. But they were together and free.

At age fourteen, Maurice left Philadelphia with his sister and her husband for the newly-established Jewish colony of Clarion near Gunnison, Utah. Life was hard in the colony since most of the people were ill-equipped to handle the demands of farming in such an isolated area. After two years in Clarion, Maurice left for Salt Lake City, where he was joined shortly thereafter by the rest of his family.

It was in Salt Lake City that Maurice left his mark. Conditions for the Warshaw's were difficult, but Maurice and his father made a living peddling merchandise and foodstuffs door-to-door. He would learn good customer service lessons he later passed along to his young newspaper boy and eventually all his employees.

After several years in Salt Lake City, his step-mother died and his father moved to Cleveland. Maurice continued to work at various jobs until the Depression years, when he opened his own business at Ninth South and Main in Salt Lake City. He named his first store Grand Central Market hoping one day it would become "as busy as the big station." Because of his marketing innovations and firm belief in being volume-oriented along with giving the customer a good deal, his Grand Central spread throughout Utah into Idaho and Wyoming.

His life is best summed up in the words from the title of his autobiography, "Life, more sweet than bitter." Maurice Warshaw died on 5 January 1979. He was an entrepreneur, philanthropist, and humanitarian. His bust has a permanent spot in the State Capitol building in Salt Lake City.

He's always been an inspiration to me. When I am tempted with feelings of "gee, ain't life awful," I often replay those words from Maurice Warshaw in my mind. No matter what life throws at us, we can always find a glimmer of light in an equal but opposite outcome, can't we?

It seems from the beginning, the law of the opposites has always been part of the mortal experience. (See 2 Nephi 2:10-13). And that is by design. Virtue cannot exist without the equal and opposite evil. Happiness could never be felt without deep and painful sorrow. Without fear, would we ever be able to muster courage? Suffering spawns sympathy and empathy for others we would never know otherwise. Without having tasted the uncertainty and deprivation of poverty, could the feelings that arise of generosity ever be fully enjoyed? Would you ever recognize that great job without suffering a period of unemployment?

Would we ever know evil when we see it if we hadn't known the righteousness that opposes it? A hot stove cannot be distinguished by a young child unless it knows the coldness of ice. We each learn about birth as children come along in a joyful welcome, but the bitterness of death is the bookend emotion at the end of life. To search for God in this life means encountering Satan and his minions. Things break, people sin, nations collapse, everything tends toward entropy. The quest for meaning is often difficult. It was never meant to be easy.

Sometimes it takes fierce thunder and lightning and a storm to lead us toward the sunlight. Sometimes He lets it rain. We will always find Christ in either sunshine or shadow. He is not just a fair weather God.

One cannot imagine a world in which all things were the same. Imagine every car being a black Model T Ford. Imagine a world where everything is the same size and has no variability, no diversity, and there is no chance for failure or success. Imagine no sound, no music, no silence or noise, a world with no beauty or ugliness. Could you ever hope to understand love without hatred? Is there sweet without bitter, and knowing how to prize the difference between the two without some of each?

The existence of opposites paired with our agency is what gives meaning and purpose to our mortal existence. Ironically, it is this part of our Father's plan most mortals instinctively reject. Without the Lawgiver to clearly establish the bright line between good and evil, man in this world would be constantly adrift, defining behavior any way they choose. Choosing between the two is agency. One produces happiness in harmony with the "great plan of happiness," and the other produces sorrow and regrets. Such is the condition we see constantly in the world around us.

President Ezra Taft Benson

President Ezra Taft Benson said, “Every [person] eventually is backed up to the wall of faith, and there … must make his stand.” (“The Book of Mormon Is the Word of God,” Ensign, May 1975, 65). Don’t be surprised when it happens to you!

In this last week a spate of circumstances have played out, making me wonder if these things don't tend to come in bushels. A dear friend was killed in a tragic motorcycle accident, and his wife was badly injured. A young father in our ward died unexpectedly Thursday night in his sleep. A teenager, losing his temper for an instant in the height of emotion, struck the official with his fist on the side of the head, and the referee died of brain injuries sustained in the attack. So sad on so many levels.

Two nights ago, while I was fast asleep and our son and his family were sleeping in other bedrooms, my wife in the darkness of our upstairs hallway, mistook the stairway for the entrance to our bedroom, tumbled down a full flight of stairs and broke her left wrist and a toe on her left foot. It was a bad fall. She's still discovering new bruises two days later. An orthopedic surgeon will be required tomorrow to pin the shattered bones of her wrist back into the right place. Not one of these circumstances would be anyone's first choice, would they?

It seems we value the things that matter most only when we are compelled to submit to the opposite condition we would never wish upon ourselves. We love the living more when we bid farewell to a loved one who dies. We know sunshine and sweetness only by being exposed to the darkness and sorrow. However, no matter how dark the night, we can always find a bright ray of sunshine. Patsy's comment to me in the emergency room was, "At least it wasn't my right wrist." Look on the bright side, right?

Elder Neil L. Andersen

One week ago, the father-in-law of the young father who died taught our lesson in the High Priest Group. The topic? Elder Neil L. Andersen's General Conference address from October 2012, "Trial of Your Faith." Mercifully, it was the grandfather, not any of the immediate family members, who first discovered the body of his son-in-law. I called that father and grandfather on the phone this morning to offer my love to his entire family, many of whom live in our ward, as he now provides the comfort and lives the very principles he was teaching us a week ago. Life is filled with deep irony, isn't it?

At the end of Elder Andersen's talk there are many useful footnotes. One quote is particularly appropriate when tragedy, sorrow, doubt, fear and anxiety strikes. These unwelcome guests will frequently come knocking, but we don't have to give them lodging for any more than a brief season. Through it all we can find the universal expression to fit every situation, good or bad - "this too will pass."

President George Q. Cannon

President George Q. Cannon said: “No matter how serious the trial, how deep the distress, how great the affliction, [God] will never desert us. He never has, and He never will. He cannot do it. It is not His character. He is an unchangeable being; the same yesterday, the same today, and He will be the same throughout the eternal ages to come. We have found that God. We have made Him our friend, by obeying His Gospel; and He will stand by us. We may pass through the fiery furnace; we may pass through deep waters; but we shall not be consumed nor overwhelmed. We shall emerge from all these trials and difficulties the better and purer for them, if we only trust in our God and keep His commandments.” (“Remarks,” Deseret Evening News, Mar. 7, 1891, 4); see also Jeffrey R. Holland, “Come unto Me,” Ensign, April 1998, 16–23).

Knowing there is a God who can be appealed to in times of trouble makes of this mortal experience an existence that is truly "more sweet than bitter." The weight of our sorrows is never so great He will not gladly offer to lift it off our shoulders when we seek Him in faith. Of that I am certain.