He will yet reveal

Some say the sole purpose of The Family: A Proclamation to the World is to define marriage as between a man and a woman. Not so! Why would the church do that to so many who fall outside that ideal? If only 1% of LDS church members are gay, that's still 138,248 gay Mormons based on the church's 2009 Statistical Report. That would fill to overflowing two facilities the size of LaVell Edwards Stadium.


Yes, the proclamation supports strong families, but not just one kind of strong family. Yes, it says "marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God..." but it does not say that other unions are invalid. 


For example we know that marriages between one man and multiple women are also viable on the other side of the veil. The proclamation does not invalidate polygamous marriages made prior to 1890 or the present-day serial polygamist who is sealed to one wife, and then upon her death is sealed to a second, resulting an eternal polygamist marriage.

The Proclamation on the Family speaks of many ideals. Yes, it certainly is ideal for a man and a woman to marry and rear children. No argument there. But it clearly and directly acknowledges that this ideal is not always attained because of a variety of reasons:


"Disability, death, or other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation."


It doesn't say that other circumstances may cause problems but there's nothing that can be done. It says other circumstances may necessitate individual adaptation. That powerful, inclusive sentence is a loving acknowlegement that the ideals set forth in the proclamation are sometimes unavoidably unavailable to real people in real life.


In 1922 when my grandmother was widowed as a young mother, her parents did not allow her to date after the tragic loss of her young husband. They believed that dating would violate her Temple covenants with her eternal companion. Today she would not be so tightly constrained. Today she would be encouraged to marry a second worthy husband in the Temple, but not for time and all eternity. The doctrine hasn't changed, but the intrepretation of it has. It didn't even require a revelation, just a change in attitude and, perhaps, church policy. Does anyone how if there was an official change or not?


After the 1978 revelation opening the priesthood to worthy black members of the church, Bruce R. McConkie was questioned about his many strident statements against "the Negro." In a speech entitled All Are Alike unto God he said, "Forget everything that I have said, or what President Brigham Young or President George Q. Cannon or whomsoever has said in days past that is contrary to the present revelation. We spoke with a limited understanding and without the light and knowledge that now has come into the world. We get our truth and our light line upon line and precept upon precept. We have now had added a new flood of intelligence and light on this particular subject, and it erases all the darkness and all the views and all the thoughts of the past. They don’t matter any more."


Elder McConkie thus affirmed the Ninth Article of Faith: "We believe all that God has revealed, all that He does now reveal, and we believe that He will yet reveal many great and important things pertaining to the Kingdom of God."


Fortunately we won't have to forget or set aside anything in the Proclamation on the Family if and when it is revealed that in addition to traditional marriage being ordained of God, "other circumstances" require individual and church-wide adaptation, and should be handled with as much love, accomodation and support as death or disability.


I believe that someday we will all sing with great fervor and thanksgiving Carol Lynn Pearson and Reid N. Nibley's prophetic Primary song I'll Walk with You:

If you don't walk as most people do, 

Some people walk away from you,

But I won't! I won't!

If you don't talk as most people do

Some people talk and laugh at you,

But I won't! I won't!

I'll walk with you,

I'll talk with you.

That's how I'll show my love for you.

Jesus walked away from none.

He gave his love to ev'ryone.

So I will! I will!

Jesus blessed all he could see,

Then turned and said,

"Come, follow me."

And I will! I will! I will! I will!

I'll walk with you,

I'll talk with you.

That's how I'll show my love for you.

Latter-day Saints and Modern-day Pioneers

Check out this opinion piece by Holly Welker on the Huffington Post. Among her many quotable lines is this one: 

"So this year I celebrate by imagining the Pioneer Day parade of my latter-day dreams. The marshals of my parade wouldn't be men who make pronouncements about doctrine, but the contemporary pioneers who challenge and remake the ways Mormons live their day-to-day lives."

Thoughts can kill, but can words heal?

I found myself writing a reply to Beck tonight and thought I'd share it here as well:

I have also felt dead ended at times. Once it was so bad I didn't think I had any option but taking my own life. Fortunately I got help and was eventually able to envision more constructive ways to cope and move forward.

Ezra says you can be in the right spot but not have the results you seek. So true in my experience. I didn't take this photo, but I've shot ones like it. Usually the light is right only for a few moments. You can be in the right spot, but if you're not aware of the moments, you might miss it. However if you capture it vividly in your memory, it's yours forever and nothing can take it away from you. Maybe, Beck, you're in the right spot right now, or you soon will be. I love Sinatra's "love is either in your heart or on its way..." from Young at Heart.

Jay remembers not feeling a sense of belonging for a long time, me too on that one. MoHoHawaii endorses therapy. I can tell you I wouldn't be alive today without it. So on top of these ideas I'll throw in one more: bibliotherapy. It's inexpensive and sometimes quite effective.

Beck I will pray for you. I will ask our Father in Heaven to bless you now and in the hours and days ahead that you might feel His divine love, and our love, your wife's love, your children's love, the love of those you have mentored, and the love you have cast upon the waters these many years. I want to believe that we are also in your prayers, and I do believe our collective and individual prayers are more powerful than we sometimes think.

My Entire Life a Fraud?

I wrote the following to one of our fellow Moho Bloggers. One of his friends let me know he wasn't comfortable with my linking to his post, so I've removed that link from this post and from the list of blogs I'm publicly following. 

"Thanks for sharing such an intense post. I related to some of your statements because they recalled the black and white, either/or thinking I did quite a bit of when I was suicidally depressed.

In your post I saw words like: all, gone, anymore, lost all my faith, didn't try, I guess I lied to myself, too late, I don't think that I'll ever be happy.

I remember thinking my entire life had been a fraud and that anything good I'd done was an illusion. Now of course, I realize my black and white thinking was the cause of most of my pain.

To me one of the greatest things in your post was this admission: I even thought that I had a light feeling, one time. I thought that I felt His arms, a love, a peace, a release.

In my opinion you did feel these things and you can feel them again, even right now. Our Savior's love is unconditional, right now, for you and me and everyone else on the planet. One of my favorite hymns is Our Savior's Love and how it breaks through clouds of stife.

So much for my soap box."