I am finally understanding a purpose for why we have gone through the extreme stresses that we have. The Lord needed me to comprehend what poverty really is. Poverty isn’t about financial limitations although there are usually financial components to poverty and mitigations that can be had with financial means. The truth is that I am able to know what Alma was referring to when he spoke of those who were poor in spirit among the Zoramites.
Alma wasn’t referring to the financial disadvantages of these people but to their inability to think clearly due to their indigent circumstances and exacerbated by their financial disadvantages. Trying to think in terms of good, better, and best in order to choose best is virtually impossible when constraints are so tight that you must constantly operate under the binary formula of available or unavailable.
Those people were so ground down emotionally and spiritually that their thinking stopped at the Injustice that they weren’t allowed to worship in the places of worship which they had even built with their own hands.
The truth is that most people who have not experienced true poverty ever see it as anything other than a financial affliction and frequently think they must be stupid or foolish for the choices they made. Even many people who truly experience poverty firsthand don’t fully understand the experience because they are so mentally and emotionally tapped out that they can’t make any logical sense of the effects of that picture beyond the objectified financial aspects of it.
I have at least experienced enough to recognize the complexity of poverty while at the same time being given just enough breathing room lately that I can comprehend the true scope and nature of the affliction.
Notes from church
Stake Priesthood Meeting
President Callan (Bountiful Temple President): I’m beginning to wonder if my weekly temple attendance literally kept us afloat for years. Whether that is true or not, I need to get back to regularly attending the temple. I also need to continue my effort – begun last week – to take time for family history each Sunday with the kids.
I didn’t realize that Dale Callan had been inactive with his family early in his marriage. The Callan’s were reactivated more than 50 years ago.
President Doug Monson: “We are asking you brethren to rise up to a higher vision of the work of salvation.”
In combining the Elders and High Priests we were told that this was not a High Priest takeover of the Elders Quorum. I’m thinking that instead it is a call for all elders to grow into the kind of priesthood holders that we have previously associated with the High Priests.
A past Relief Society President in the 10th ward would bake sweet rolls each day and then pray about who to take them to. Likewise we should each find a way to reach out to anyone consistently and then offer that way to any among our stewardship who may need it that day. That may be a note, a phone call, a visit, cookies, a joke. Whatever it is should invite interaction.
Sacrament meeting:
Craig Smith (the stake patriarch who gave Savannah her blessing): I wonder if a patriarch, who is so practiced at listening to the spirit in order to give blessings of such import in the lives of those receiving them, ever prepared a talk. Do they instead simply listen to the spring to know what to speak about in the moment when they are called upon?
“Our homes need to be a safe harbor, … a temple, … a school of the prophets.”
“Father’s, natural Patriarchs, … can receive revelation for their children and their families.”
“One of the ways we can arm our children is to prepare them to receive a patriarchal blessing.”
I forgot who Becky Parry was quoting but the quote was “people who are captained by Christ are consumed by Christ” and that their surroundings would reflect that association with Christ.
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