The Lord can comfort me in my suffering.
Listen to Dr. Ellen Davis, who has spent years translating the Psalms, shows us just how expansive this ancient prayer book really is. She calls the Psalms a kind of “First Amendment” for the life of faith: permission to bring everything before God. Even the shape of the book reflects that, with lament gradually giving way to praise by the book’s end:
Dr. Ellen Davis | Unfiltered Before God: Praying the Psalms
Most of us can probably recall a verse or two from the book of Psalms—something comforting, or words inside a hymn we know. But Psalms is the longest book in the Bible, and tucked inside this same book of scripture are psalms of rage, cursing, and despair that are a lot harder to make sense of.
I believe that the Son and the Father weep because they refuse to look away from evil. They choose to share in our suffering. When Enoch questioned the Father for weeping, the Father asked him to look, really look, at man’s inhumanity to man. And Enoch “looked upon [the people’s] wickedness, and their misery, and wept” (Moses 7:41). Enoch had been preoccupied with the salvation of his own community. So preoccupied, in fact, that he had succeeded in creating a Zion that God had lifted into heaven. Enoch’s efforts had raised the living. But the Father had to remind him of those who had been left behind, of those who still suffered down in the dirt. In the process, Enoch learned that God’s life was not a life without suffering, because God’s love was not confined to those who loved him. He realized that to love like God meant to suffer like God.
—Jordan Watkins, “Suffering Towards Godliness”
God’s word will keep me on His path.
The beating heart of the religious life is the consciousness that all maps are finite. They resonate with the reality of territory, but full perception of that place lies inevitably, as we live, beyond us. The purpose of religion is to help us understand that we will travel from map to map throughout our lives, with our eye upon a perfect territory we may never fully inhabit in this life, but nonetheless can imagine and aspire to.
—Matthew Bowman, “Spiritual Cartography”
Above all, I’ve slowly been able to attune to a sense of deep trust in life itself, intuiting that even while I don’t have the same convictions about certain claims and propositions that I once did, I can trust that which sparks a sense of life in me. I don’t know what that ultimately means, or where it will take me. And I certainly wouldn’t presume to say that I’ve found the true communities for all people everywhere. I just have a felt sense that these communities have offered me belonging and aliveness in connection to my heritage.
In the words of the hymn “Lead Kindly Light:”
I do not ask to see the distant scene;
one step enough for me
—Jon Ogden, “I Do Not Know, But I Trust”
Often, I am a statistician of faith, and my perspective is eugenic. Unknowingly, I’ve been holding an ideology of gospel ability over myself and others. Deviations from the norm of faith are unwelcome, sinful. I find myself categorizing and counting my steps. I even, admittedly, find myself categorizing the steps others take or don’t take. Wandering and winding don’t fit nicely into the covenant path narrative I’ve planned out for myself and for my children. I realize that, in some ways, I construct my faith around its own kind of ideology of ability. Who am I disabling or discounting in the process?
—Kirsten Burningham, “Ladders to Heaven”
I also have friends who have left the Latter-day Saints and joined another religious community unencumbered by the “baggage” peculiar to our own faith and history. I respect their sense of integrity and feel that God consecrates their worthy work. In my professional study of religious traditions, particularly Buddhism, I have learned profound spiritual truths. I have also learned that all religious traditions have their own human histories, contradictions, and reasons for regret.
For myself, I choose to be a Latter-day Saint because I love our covenants: to God, to each other, and to the world. I love the baptismal covenant to bear one another’s burdens, the sealing covenant to make human love everlasting, the temple covenant to consecrate our time and talents in establishing a Zion in which there are no poor among us. I rejoice in the power of these covenants to bind us across the world, to make us equal as we stand before God, to convert hope into solemn promises. I believe that these Latter-day Saint covenants are true, which is to say I believe God’s power truly inhabits them, and through this power things which were otherwise impossible become possible.
—Melissa Inouye, “A Church That is Real”
On my drive through the Nevada desert decades ago, I learned that there was more than one way to Winnemucca, but it required getting directions and finding our way to the correct interstate. Likewise, though the gospel teaches there is one way to eternal life, the restoration expands access to that way. Every other road can eventually intersect with the strait and narrow path that leads to life, giving every child of God the opportunity to reach salvation. This knowledge means we do not need to condemn others with our warning voice, but it also does not need to pacify us into silence. Instead, it can motivate us to shout for joy as we share this mercy with everyone.
—Byran Gentry, “Do All Roads Lead to Winnemucca?”
The Lord is more powerful than any idol.
In this conversation, Elizabeth explores the concept of sin and the 7 deadly sins. She asks, what can envy teach us about having a stable sense of self especially in this age of social media? And isn’t acedia or sloth, the 8th deadly sin, really about attention? How can we continually recall our attention to the things we hope will shape our souls?
She points out that at the end of the day, the 7 deadly sins aren’t a legalistic list of ways to be in debt to go, but a loving guide for how to be in right relationship with the people around us, and should always be inseparably connected to ideas like compassion, forgiveness, and restoration.
Elizabeth Oldfield: Fully Alive
Thist week, we’re sharing a beautiful conversation between writer and thinker Elizabeth Oldfield and Zachary Davis. Elizabeth is the author of Fully Alive: Tending to the Soul in Turbulent Times and host of the podcast, “Sacred”.
The Lord knows my heart.
On the surface (in the kingdom of men) the poor and the meek have failed, and small things like sparrows, lilies, a pinch of yeast, and mustard seeds are essentially worthless. But in the kingdom of God, beyond the surface, these small things have tremendous worth and potential.
To change your mind—to repent—is to see this worth and potential. It is to see that everyone is a child of God. It’s to see a world where each person is deserving of forgiveness, a world where even our enemies are worthy of love, a world where we have the capacity to extend grace to all people just as God lovingly sends rain and sun on all people. This is the good news of the kingdom, a kingdom where, unlike the gospel of Augustus, everyone is a brother and a sister, independent of worldly status.
—Jon Ogden, “Finding the Gospel by Seeing Differently”