Mormon Musings

The line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either -- but right through every human heart -- and through all human hearts. This line shifts. Inside us, it oscillates with the years. And even within hearts overwhelmed by evil, one small bridgehead of good is retained. ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

 "One of the most important lessons I have learned is that our capacity as children of God becomes what it has to be.  We should never minimize or underestimate our ability to deal with challenges placed before us.  The size or complexity of challenges need not be the cause for alarm or despair.  Human potentiality is perhaps the most squandered resource on earth, and possibly the least tapped."   David B. Haight

[God] experiences a deep, divine disappointment in us when we are ungrateful and when we are unwilling to confess God‘s hand in all things. (D&C 59:21.) But it is because of what our sustained ingratitude does to us, not to Him. Failure to see His hand in human affairs in bringing to pass His eternal purposes and plans in the world (at the same time leaving us to exercise our agency) is a fatal misreading of life. It also represents a profound spur of selfishness and self-centeredness. It is these faults that lead to the celebration of the appetites rather than of spiritual things. And God knows perfectly what the end result of such trends are so far as human misery is concerned. It is our true happiness which He desires for us, His children, and “wickedness never was happiness". Neal A. Maxwell

It would be interesting...if I were to ask one of you to describe the to the satisfaction of all here the color yellow.  Yellow, of course, is a primary color, but it would be difficult for you to describe it to use without comparing it with other colors.  Yet you have no difficulty recognizing yellow when you see it.  We know more than we can tell!  Sometimes the things we know take the form of knowledge about what is happening to us in life in which we sense purpose, in which we sense divine design, but which we cannot speak about with full articulateness.  There are simply moments of mute comprehension and mute certitude.  We need to pay attention when these moments come to us because God often gives us the assurances we need but not necessarily the capacity to transmit these assurances to anyone else.   Neal A. Maxwell, "But For a Small Moment"

One day we will understand fully how complete our commitment was in our first estate in accepting the very conditions of challenge in our second estate about which we sometimes complain in this school of stress. Our collective and personal premortal promises will then be laid clearly before us. Further, when we are finally judged in terms of our performance in this second estate, we will see that God, indeed, is perfect in his justice and mercy. We will also see that when we fail here it will not have been because we were truly tempted above that which we were able to bear. There was always an escape hatch had we looked for it! We will also see that our lives have been fully and fairly measured. In retrospect, we will even see that our most trying years here will often have been our best years, producing large tree rings on our soul, Gethsemanes of growth! Mortality is moistened by much opportunity if our roots of resolve can but take it in. Just as no two snowflakes are precisely alik...

Sometimes this deep infusion of Christ into modern revelation [i.e., including through the Book of Mormon] does not achieve its purpose in people’s lives. Some people’s faith is based more on Joseph Smith than on Jesus Christ. When they begin to question the Prophet, they lose faith in the Savior. We all know of Latter-day Saints whose faith is shaken by new facts, such as the existence of the alternate accounts of the First Vision which I have talked about today. When this new information builds up, they grow concerned. Could it all be wrong? Their consternation goes so far that they consider leaving the church, painful as that would be.  For a long time, I would try to answer their specific questions, try to persuade them there was another way of understanding the facts that were bothering them. I reminded them that people like me and many other informed Latter-day Saints are aware of all the disruptive information and still believe in Joseph Smith. We would talk for hours, but n...

The moment a man or a woman becomes angry they show a great weakness. Wilford Woodruff