Sands of Change

So this week was a momentous moment in Church history when The Brethren reversed the 2015 exclusion policy which marked married gay couples as apostates, and denied church ordinances to the children of gay couples. This was an awful policy which caused nothing but pain and sorrow, that punished children for the 'sins' of their parents and denied the Gift of the Holy Ghost to children who, because their parents were living contrary to church teachings, would probably need it more than others; and it is worth celebrating that it's gone. But, and it's a big but, there was a massive disconnect between the original announcement and the reversal this week. Both were declared to be the mind and will of God as revealed to his servant the prophet, which begs the question why did God change His mind so quick? I mean it's easy to understand how policy can change after decades have past. What was right for the 1950's isn't a good fit for the 21st century, but to do a 180 in just 3½ years what could have possibly changed that drastically? How can we trust a God that flip flops so easily? Were the brethren mistaken in 2015? If so how can we trust them if they can make such a mistake? Why would God give revelation to his prophet that would take us down the wrong road? Many people have commented over the interweb this is policy not doctrine and that's the point of continuing revelation. Which does sit well when we're talking about decades, but not so well when talking about months. So I'm going to go down a rabbit hole here, will you journey with me? What if both were revelation? Would God give us revelation that would take us down the wrong path? Uncomfortably the answer is a resounding yes he has done so before.

The most prominent example of this is in 1 Samuel 8, Israel wants a king. Samuel goes to the Lord and asks of him and is told, no. He's also told to tell them all the evils that will befall them if they choose a king, he does so and Israel once again demands a king. In 1 Samuel 8:22 "And the Lord said to Samuel, Hearken unto their voice, and make them a king." He then uses a Urrim and Tummim to select a king. More latterly Joseph Smith bothered the Lord into letting Martin Harris borrow the 116 pages of translation manuscript. He was told no and Joseph wouldn't listen, so in the end God gave permission to Joseph, those pages were lost and Joseph had to suffer the consequences of that.

You see our Father knows his children very well. We are prideful, stubborn and have a tendency to think we know what's best and periodically our Heavenly Father has to show us how we're wrong. The church as an organisation had become set in how it was going to interact with the LGBT community, so can I see our Heavenly Father looking down, knowing us better than we know ourselves, and thinking "ok, you want to go do down that path? Fine lets take you down that path and see where it leads". So he gives the go-ahead for the exclusion policy. That path led to misery. People left the church in droves as they saw a massive disconnect between suffer the little children and the exclusion of the children of gay parents. It was about as unchristlike as you could get. Thousands of gay members felt they had been kicked in the balls. Gay couples who attend church felt this was nothing more than big fuck you, and a clear signal they were not wanted in our buildings. and most horrifically are those who because of this policy lost their final strand of hope and chose to end their own lives, mortality had become so painful, the loss of hope so complete they could no longer see the point in continuing the journey. Can I see 3½ years later the brethren after seeing this shambles going back to the Lord and our loving Heavenly Father, patient as ever, "Ok we went that way and now you know what that road looks like. Now can we do it my way?"

As a good friend of mine said last night, why are we so surprised when we get it wrong? If you read your scriptures a heavy percentage of the stories, right from the Old Testament through to the restoration, are of Israel screwing it up and God having to come in and clean up the mess. The exclusion policy was a mistake that brought nothing but pain and suffering, but unfortunately we sometimes have to learn from our mistakes. So what lessons did we learn? Well the one thing I noticed when this policy came out I don't know one person that didn't struggle with it to one degree or another. Some got over it pretty quickly and others never will, but suddenly everyone was aware of our struggles as gay LDS. There were people who had no idea that there was an issue suddenly realising we needed to be on their radar and reaching out. John Gustav-Wrathall, President of Affirmation, wrote an unprecedented full page article in Deseret News on how to help LGBT feel welcome in your meetings. I saw a people wakened up to other's pain that they were oblivious to before. I saw peoples attitudes change, and an increase in love.

We NEED to learn that lesson, because by God the price was high, too bloody high! We as a church will be held accountable before the throne of God for the suffering it caused, and so we need to learn that lesson. Exclusion is never the answer. Love is. Only love.

The Book of Abraham: Another Testament of Joseph Smith (Part 1)

Well one of the biggest attacks on the church has been Joseph's translation of the Book of Abraham, and it has become one of the most controversial because now that we are able to translate Egyptian we can verify how accurate a translator Joseph was. First we need to set the background.

History

Rosetta stone

In 1835 when Joseph came into possession of some mummies and Egyptian papyri the Egyptian language was a dead language, well not dead but definitely asleep! It was untranslatable. Now the Rosetta Stone had been discovered by this point which would crack the code but it wouldn't be until the 1850's that that would happen, and at this point only the top egyptologists would have access to it at the British Museum. So Micheal Chandler approached Joseph in Kirkland in 1835 as he had heard of Joseph's ability to translate dead languages and hoped to sell a bunch of mummies and scrolls he had been commissioned to sell. Joseph looked through the mummies and recognised them as being written by the hand of Abraham and immediately set about raising the $2500 asking price. He translates the scrolls and eventually they get published as the Book of Abraham, to be canonised as scripture in the Pearl of Great Price in 1880. Lucy Mack Smith opens a 'museum' of sorts and as word of the translation spreads charges people a small fee to see the mummies and scrolls to try and recuperate some of the costs in buying them.


After Joseph's death the artefacts pass through several hands to be lost again to the world...to be partially rediscovered in 1966 and bought by the church in 1967. Authenticity could be established as the fragments found were still attached to paper which also had drawings of Kirkland temple and maps of the area, but it's estimated that only about ⅓ of the original manuscripts had been discovered. Also they had been damaged by the great Chicago fire and flooding of the museum. This caused great excitement both inside and outside the church because by now the Egyptian language was easily translatable and finally we have an empirical test to examine Joseph's claims.

And this is where it becomes problematic...

Experts examine the fragments and they are discovered to be experts from the Book of Breathings which is effectively a cliff notes version of The Book of the Dead, an Egyptian funerary text, of a high priest named Soter and buried in Thebes in the 1st century BC. Joseph fails the test...or does he?

Ancient Teaching Styles
So before we get into this I need to introduce you to an ancient teaching style that hid higher teachings inside common teachings as introduced to me by reading Hugh B Nibley. First lets read John 1:1

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

Now Nibley teaches that the word logos its correctly translated here as word, but that it can also be translated as counsel/council, now lets reread that with that knowledge.

In the beginning was the council, and the council was with God, and the council was God.

Now to an LDS mind this brings a whole new deeper meaning to this verse, and this was a method used by the ancients that would hide deeper knowledge that only the initiated would understand.

Now with this in mind let's look at there scrolls that were found...

Facsimiles

Now taking that let's take a look at facsimile 1 from the Book of Abraham, above is a graphic I found online which perfectly shows Joseph's interpretation vs the egyptologists. Before we get into this we have to remember that Joseph's knowledge of Egyptian culture and religion would have been zero, and had no frame of reference for anything he saw here.

So first of all Joseph says this is Abraham about to be sacrificed by the priests of Elkenah, in the Book of the Dead this is an image portraying the process of mummification. Both are religious rituals centred on death.

#1 Joseph identifies this as an angel, whereas in the BotD it's identified as the soul of the departed. As mormons we know that angels are visitations of those who have lived or who will live on this Earth...so both translate this as an angel.

#2 Both are translated as the object of the death ritual.

#3 The BoA represents this as a priest of Elkenah. The above graphic doesn't give the full translation of this but in the BotD this is Anubis about to start the mummification process. Obviously Anubis himself doesn't do this, so in the ritual we have a priest perform it in place of Anubis. So in both we have a priest represented here.

#4 both are translated as an object the subject is lying on (that one is really quite obvious)

#5,6,7&8 Now Joseph says that these are images representing 4 gods, and we know today that these are actually 4 canopic jars in which the innards of the deceased are placed during the mummification process. Big miss hey? Not really. The four jars represent the gods Hapi, Duamutef, Imsety and Qebehsenuf. The names maybe different but he correctly identifies these as Gods of Egypt.

#9 BoA says this is the god Pharaoh, the BotD says this is the God Horus. Now other than both being correctly translated as gods, and also recognising that there was a cult of Pharaoh, Pharaoh was recognised by the Egyptian religion as the physical incarnation of Horus in life. A home run hit by Joseph there!

#10 Not sure I fully understand the connection between these. Holding my hands up there.

#11 Now Joseph says this is supposed to represent the pillars of heaven as the Egyptians understood them, Egyptologists say this is a serakh which represents the palace of Pharaoh. As explained earlier 9 clearly represents the god Pharaoh. The heavens are where a god lives...definitely a strong connection there.

#12 The image above rise to dismiss this as 'just the water the crocodile swims in' but the crocodile is a god and so the water becomes the dwelling place of a god. In Genesis one, the heavens are more than once represented as 'waters'. The heavens being where gods dwell. 

As you can see time and time again Joseph Smith correctly identifies the principles behind each of the representations. Once again I will re-emphasise that at this point in the 19th century almost nothing was known about Egypt, so for him to hit this ball again and again and again categorically proves that Joseph did translate these correctly. Especially when we add into the mix what Nibley teaches us about hidden teaching inside common imagery.

The Scrolls

Now lets look at the scrolls themselves. The main claim is that translating the papyrus that we have it becomes clear that they are excerpts from the The Book of Breathings and just plain old funerary texts, so therefore Joseph's translatation is wrong. Well there's one thing we need to establish first, are these the actual scrolls Joseph used to translate the Book of Abraham? Well we're not certain how many scrolls were recovered and how many are still missing,  but we definitely don't have them all. 

So we need to look for other evidence. Is there a description of the scrolls used? Fortunately yes! Joseph himself gives us a description. "The record of Abraham and Joseph found with the mummies is beautifully written on papyrus, with black and a small part red ink or paint, in perfect preservation"

So lets look at images of the papyrus courtesy of wikipedia:

So first of all are these beautifully written? Well no, Nibley describes them as having a feel of being written in a rush, and anyone who has seen other examples of Egyptian writing would agree, these aren't great examples of the beauty of Egyptian writing. They do have examples of red ink though, but what about the preservation of them? Now that is a difficult one because as mentioned earlier they were involved in a fire, and water damage from flooding, and they probably weren't stored in optimal conditions. While the water damage can be seen on the above, what about the other damage? Well these were pasted to paper by Joseph  and the surrounding paper isn't  that badly effected. And we can see the head from the facsimile is missing, and it looks as if they were pasted on to the paper in that condition, so no not in perfect preservation. I think the evidence that we have more than strongly supports that these scrolls are not the scrolls that Joseph translates the Book of Abraham from.

But, I hear you cry, we can clearly see the facsimile in the scroll! Why would the facsimile be there if these aren't the scrolls? Well in his book The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri Nibley answers this. Now to our modern European minds pictures always go with the texts but no so with Egyptian writing, very often the pictures are not associated with the accompanying texts at all. This seems bizarre to us but was perfectly normal for them. In fact when you read the Book of Abraham, when it references the facsimiles it outright states that the facsimile it references is to be found elsewhere. Abraham 1:12-14 makes it clear that the facsimile is at the beginning of this record. But Abraham chapter 1 is the beginning of what we have. It would seem weird to say "you need to go to the beginning" when you're at the beginning, therefore what we have as chapter 1 cannot have been the beginning of the scroll it was recorded on.

Who wrote it?

So we now have to deal with who wrote them? Well, Joseph Smith absolutely declares these scrolls to be written by the hand of Abraham, but as we discussed earlier they were found in the tomb of Soter, a high priest buried in the first century A.D. So how do resolve that one? Quite easily actually. Who painted the ceiling of the Sistine chapel? Michelangelo right? That's easy, but wrong. While Michelangelo definitely painted the important aspects of the ceiling, the background etc would have probably been painted by students of his under his supervision. This was perfectly normal and most of the super sized great works were painted like this, but we only credit the master with the work. The Egyptians dealt likewise. In fact regards written works Nibley informs us that no matter how many times a scroll was copied by scribes, it was still considered to be written by the hand of the original author. So even if the original author was several thousand years earlier under Egyptian tradition a scroll would still be considered to be written by his hand. We also know that there are unique hieroglyphs on these common texts that only exist on the Joseph Smith papyrus, which definitely suggests that are things in regard to these texts that make them special. So in conclusion, even though these scrolls are a couple of thousand years one would have to prove that the original that the scribe copied it from was written by someone else other than Abraham. Now while proving that it was would be just as an impossible task, that Abraham would hide hidden knowledge for the initiated is perfectly feasible, and in the next part of this post I will absolutely prove beyond a doubt that Joseph Smith knew exactly what was in the scrolls we do have.

My Sources

While my study of Egyptology as a teenager has definitely helped me in this study a major source for me in the writing of this blog has been his book The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri and other works of his. I would love to specify which ones but over the years I have unfortunately forgotten where I got what... But if you can't wait for my next part which will be a few weeks away, then The Message of the Joseph Smith Papyri can be purchased from Deseret Books here

A Times Response

So most of you by now are aware there's been a bit of a fuss over a certain obituary in the New York Times for President Thomas S Monson, and I genuinely have to wonder how many people have actually read the article? Are we reading the same article? From my reading of the interweb it seems a certain paragraph is causing the main concern and while I can in some way see why some people see it that way I am baffled that so many do.

"Facing vociferous demands to recognize same-sex marriage, and weathering demonstrations at church headquarters by Mormon women pleading for the right to be ordained as priests, Mr. Monson did not bend. Teachings holding homosexuality to be immoral, bans on sexual intercourse outside male-female marriages, and an all-male priesthood would remain unaltered."

Now let's take this apart a bit. vociferous according to the Oxford English dictionary means "Expressing or characterised by vehement opinions; loud and forceful." Weathering in this context means to "withstand"and usually has positive connotations for the subject. So despite vehement opinions and demonstrations he weathered those storms and did not bend. He remained resolute to core doctrines and tenets and refused to bend to public opinions. Why the hell aren't we seeing this as an amazing tribute for a prophet of God? I sure do! Add to this the implied praise they write regarding lowering the age of Sister missionaries, and for opening the church historical department in an "unprecedented era of openness" I read an article that portrays President Monson's stewardship through some difficult times as one of strong leadership, who listened to concerns and changed when he felt it was needed but remained resolute to doctrines as currently revealed by God. And to be completely frank if you feel The Times addressing of these issues constituted an attack upon our church then maybe you should reassess your own position on them? Maybe you're not as comfortable with the church's position as you think you are? And please do not see this as a personal attack on you? Anyone who knows me knows I live for these times. We should be uncomfortable with things at times. We need to be. Because when we're uncomfortable it forces us to evaluate and reassess ourselves.

I do not agree with every policy decision President Monson signed his name to. Our leaders have made mistakes in the past and I have no doubt that we have policies today in our church future generations will wonder at, and we will make more mistakes in the future. And while I am the first to say there are many things that need to change and will change in the church as further light and knowledge are received it makes my heart sing that our prophet is recognised as a man who holds firm to the light and knowledge as he has received it to this point. That our prophet is not a man who is seen as bending to public opinion but will stand firm even if the whole world is against him. Yes there are a couple of sentences in the article that have a tone that could've been better the overall tone of the article is one that I absolutely am proud of.

LDS- An LGBT abomination

LDS- An LGBT abomination

So last week the ELM AP's got in touch with me, the Britannia 1st missionaries were teaching a gay guy and they wondered if I could help. I agreed, they phoned me & we arranged a time for me to go over and teach him with them. He was a cute guy, with a boyfriend, and very intelligent. We taught him about the Plan of Salvation and the Elders thought that the best way to bring up being gay & mormon was to teach the Law of Chastity. We got to the point where we discussed no sexual relations outside of marriage nor any homosexual sexual activity, and this is where I entered stage right and took centre stage...where every gay man loves to be.The Elders explained I was a gay mormon and asked me to share my story with him. I did so. Warts and all. I felt if he was going to make the decision to enter the waters of baptism then he deserved the full truth, not the glitter covered one. (For those who don't know my story it can be found here).

He had met with the missionaries before and unfortunately he had learnt of the churches position on homosexuality when they had told him that homosexuals go to the Telestial Kingdom with rapists and murderers. I rounded on the Elders I was with, demanding to know if this was what was written in Preach My Gospel, they assured me it wasn't. I profusely apologised to our investigator for having been taught false doctrine and we discussed the real truth that all that God offers he offers to all His children, wether gay or straight. We discussed the churches current position, how members unfortunately can sometimes be behind the times on this subject & the problems that can bring. We discussed how the UK church can be more up to date than the US church, and how we can affect the change that is needed in the more bigoted members of the church. it went well, the Spirit was present and we closed and arranged a future teaching appointment.

The next day I received a message from Elders Nelson & Mauerhan telling me that the investigator had dropped them, with the following message.

Elder Nelson, I'm writing this to both you and Elder Mauerham. I hope that you can grant me a last favour and ensure that he too gets a chance to read this. 

When I think about the Church of Latter Day Saints, unlike many of you I cannot think of a happy childhood in the Church, nor of times in which the organisation has been there for me in moments of hardship. Instead, I think of an organisation that denies me my existence. As I made no attempt to hide, I am a gay man. I was upfront about this from the beginning by mention of my boyfriend. Your language, whether deliberate or not, made clear your opinion on this fact. And unfortunately I cannot say that I am surprised at what I heard. 

Your claim that it is fair to ask gay couples to be celibate, as you ask the same for straight couples, holds little water. Straight Mormons have a chance of family in the Church, they have a chance of marriage ordained by God. Gay people are not given this chance. Our relationships are seen as sinful. Our relationships are seen as not fit to raise children in. Our relationships are less than. Under your doctrine these are indisputable facts. I have zero time for any movement, doctrine, or speech, which denies the love I have for my partner as real. 

I am lucky that I am only insulted and disgusted by this, for too many of my fellow queer people who are raised in the Church suffer far worse fates. More than 60% of queer youth self-harm, and more than 20% attempt suicide -- yesterday you spoke with two such people, Scott and myself. Not even to mention how for trans youth these figures for suicide almost triple -- how do you think this aligns with the Church's policy to deny them their gender? In the LDS heartland of Utah these statistics are even more troubling. Here children hear loud and clear the denial of their identities, and how they will never know love, and how they will never have their own families. The state government here has supressed the collection of information on LGBT suicide, the LDS influence on their legislature ensures this. Preventing this collection continues to allow the mass suicide of queer Mormon youth to go unnoticed. This is Church violence on my community, on my personhood. 

One can attempt a defense of the Church here on the grounds that Church doctrine is written by earthly men. But doctrine that allows the death of its youth cannot be the word of God, it cannot be a part of the Gospel. Scott made a case of hoping for change, which I understand. Your organisation has often had doctrinal change to suit modem politics and public image -- the outlawing of polygamy, accepting black Elders, no longer teaching that non-white races are unclean, and hopefully one day the acceptance of same-sex relationships. But the hope for change is no reason to excuse the Church's current state. No one would stay with a business that is killing its young workers, even if they say that they might change their minds in a few decades or so. I will not deny the love I have for my partner for any misplaced trust in your organisation. To deny this would be to deny myself. 

As both you and Elder Mauerham told me yesterday, my interpretations of the scripture thus far have been cogent and well thought out. I have been honest with you in my thoughts and action all this time, but I will never deny any part of myself as valid in exchange for a place in your organisation. As I told the last pair of Elders, I will warmly and willingly walk into the Telestial Kingdom as punishment for this. But let it be known that this will never be punishment for me, the unwavering expression of my love, in the face of opposition, is the greatest freedom I have. 

I hope that the two of you may one day see what the real loving and accepting world has to offer.

And I find it difficult to argue his points. What do we offer the LGBT community as a church? Yes we offer the ordinances required for Eternal Salvation, we offer the gospel in it's fulness and continuing revelation, but can we appreciate that from the outside looking in as an investigator these are conceptual rather than actual? That without having received that testimonial baptism of fire of the truthfulness of the restored gospel they don't actually mean very much. That what we're telling our gay/trans investigators is we expect you to give up the one you love, or the hope of ever finding him/her. That in a church where every facet points to you having a family, you will be denied this unless you marry against your sexual orientation. Depending on your local leadership you may be allowed date according to your attraction, but you will never be allowed to marry them if you fall in love. So even that tender mercy may end up being a curse. If you're trans you will never be allowed to hold the priesthood, nor enter the temple if you have had elective gender assignment surgery, even if you have it reversed.

Thousands of our youth are looking in the mirror and hating themselves, an enormously high percentage are so desperate they decide that mortality has no more to offer them and choose to end their second estate. Too many succeed. It destroys me that as an organisation we are doing nothing to reach out to these youth. That no one is telling them they are not a mistake, that their Heavenly Father loves them. There are false prophets & prophetesses out there that are giving them this message, and it's taking them away from those saving priesthood ordinances, from the power of the temples. 

His message hurts because it has too much truth in it. The blood of our children is being split and it needs to stop. And I don't know how to make it stop. My heart aches, my tears are split but I sit here helpless. This situation is an abomination that stains the true church.

Our children are dying, spiritually and physically, I beg you please make it stop!

My Mum's Eulogy: Given by me at her funeral 9/1/17

With her grandaughters

In the beginning was the word and the word was with God, and the word was God.

Hugh B Nibley, a noted historian and fluent in all the major ancient languages, teaches that on occasion the greek for word, logos, can also in rare circumstances be translated as council. This brings us greater knowledge of this verse.

In the beginning was the council, and the council was with God, and the council was God.

In Jermeiah 1:5 God tells Jeremiah “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, before you were born I set you apart; I appointed you as a prophet to the nations” In this passage we learn that Jeremiah lived with our Heavenly Father before he was born, and was set apart to his calling. Jeremiah was a man like all men and so this teaches us that we too lived before we came to Earth. We are all children of our Heavenly Father and we are not here by accident.

Before the earth was created God called all his children together in a grand council, here we lived as spirits, and he told us that the time had come for us to progress further. To do this though we had to gain for ourselves bodies, like he had and the only way for us to do that was to be born into them. He would create us a world, a perfect world, and our first parents would be created there with perfect bodies. Before long sin would enter the world and this would lead to a fall. Those perfect bodies would become imperfect, we would be subject to illness and disease. Death would enter the world. We would suffer trials and tribulations, but that this was needed. In the Book of Mormon 2 Nephi 2:22-25 we read

22 And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the garden of Eden. And all things which were created must have remained in the same state in which they were after they were created; and they must have remained forever, and had no end.

 23 And they would have had no children; wherefore they would have remained in a state of innocence, having no joy, for they knew no misery; doing no good, for they knew no sin.

 24 But behold, all things have been done in the wisdom of him who knoweth all things.

 25 Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy.

Here we learn that it is only because of our trials and tribulations we can understand what joy is. For how can we understand something if we have no perspective? How can we appreciate the good times without knowing the bad?

He told us that as we entered this world a veil would be passed over our minds and we would have no memory of our life before. This would be so that we could learn who we really are? Where are our real hearts desires? When living in his presence it was easy to be good, but would we still desire to do so with that veil in place? We would make mistakes, we would trip and fall. We would commit sins ourselves, but that the lessons we learned from those errors had the potential to teach us much. As my own dad often says, it doesn't matter how many times we fall, just how high we bounce.

Another consequence of this fall is that death would come upon us, we would be separated from our physical bodies again and they return to the earth. Because all of us would do wrong things this would also mean we would be able to return to our Celestial home for only perfect beings could live in that perfect place and we would all fall short, but there was a plan for this. What would be needed is a perfect man to be born, a man who would commit no sin. The laws of justice demanded a price be paid, but a perfect man who had done no wrong could pay that price and by doing so he could pay the price for all mankind, that the arm of mercy could be extended. Because this perfect sacrifice was so all encompassing he would gain the power to break the bonds of death itself and all of our Father's children would regain their bodies back, all would be ressurected. Death would lose it's sting! If we sought forgiveness for the wrongs we had done that atoning sacrifice would pay the price that we could not and we could return home to live with our Heavenly Father and continue in our eternal progression, we could gain all that he had, we could become like him! Perfect exalted beings! This plan was called the Plan of Salvation and all who sit here today was there when this plan was presented, and we shouted for joy. We rocked the very heavens with our hosannahs! And the knowledge of this plan today gives hope, and joy and strength.

My mum's life in this mortal realm was filled with many trials & tribulations. She barely knew a day where life did not batter her and anyone who knew her could see how weighed down she was from this struggle. The knowledge of this plan teaches us there was purpose for this, so how did she react to all she had been through?

with her grandson

For some these things would have turned them bitter & resentful. Jealous of the seeming happy, carefree lives of others. It would have eaten them up and they would have turned that anger back onto what they perceived to be a hateful world. Not my mother. She sought out those who were suffering and sought to relieve them of theirs. That others would go through alone what she had gone through was unbearable for her. She refused to judge or condemn, always seeking to understand so that she could help. In her role as a teaching assistant at Oak Park School, she would often tell me of this child or that child that was struggling seeking to lift them up, to better them. Sometimes she would tell me of a comment one child would make ridiculing those that were less fortunate, instead of rebuking them she would teach them why it was wrong. How we shouldn't judge because we all had our own journey. This was a woman though broken would seek to lift others from their misery. She did not have much, but she would give all she had to help another.

Glens wedding day

Children were her life and to see one suffering was something she could not bear. Her grandchildren were her unashamed delight, she adored them more than anything else in life, and I have no doubt that from the Spirit World she will continue to take joy in watching them grow. She raised 3 sons under trying circumstances and although like all parents she made mistakes she raised 3 good men into this world. She instilled in us her morals, her values. It was on my mothers knee I learnt my alphabet, I learnt my numbers and later learnt my words. I remember once when I was very young I had been put to bed and I was reading the ladybird book 3 Little Pigs, when I finished it I came down running excited exclaiming “mum mum I just read it from beginning to end all the way through” This was the first time I had done this by myself. She quickly hugged me tight and told me how proud she was of me. She pulled out her purse and gave me a whole 50p for me to spend as my reward...an absolute fortune in the early 80s! But this instilled in me my love of books that I still have today. She never considered us ever too young to learn.

I was so happy when Glen gave her her first grandchild, it made her so happy, although when John gave her her 3^rd it wasn't so great for me. This was she realised I had yet to give her any “the other 2 have when are you going to??' I tried to pull the gay card to little avail, “this is the 21^st century...that's no excuse these days!!” There was no such thing as too many children for her. Bishop you should mourn for her loss, she would have made an amazing asset to your Primary organisation.

An outsider may look at my mothers life and see it as being less than, but when I look at her life through the lens of the plan of salvation I see nothing but success. I see a woman who bore all of lives troubles and though she struggled through the dirt of mortality was never too weary to lift the burden of another. If I see a weakness it was that she would never turn to another for help with hers.

What does it take to be accepted of Christ? In Matthew 25:31-46 we read:

31 ¶When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:

 32 And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the goats:

 33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left.

 34 Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:

 35 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:

 36 Naked, and ye clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye came unto me.

 37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave thee drink?

 38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in? or naked, and clothed thee?

With Olly

 39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in prison, and came unto thee?

 40 And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.

 41 Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels:

 42 For I was an hungred, and ye gave me no meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me no drink:

 43 I was a stranger, and ye took me not in: naked, and ye clothed me not: sick, and in prison, and ye visited me not.

Family gathering

 44 Then shall they also answer him, saying, Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, or athirst, or a stranger, or naked, or sick, or in prison, and did not minister unto thee?

 45 Then shall he answer them, saying, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye did it not to one of the least of these, ye did it not to me.

 46 And these shall go away into everlasting punishment: but the righteous into life eternal.

By this standard we can know that my mother is accepted of Christ, her sins have been paid for and she will receive her Eternal Salvation.

With Glen, Kylie & Olly

Because of the Plan of Salvation I know that my mother is not truly dead, she lives still, she has returned to that spirit world and awaits her resurrection. Death is not final, she has only gone to a place I cannot visit yet. She was greeted by her parents and bridges are being mended. Her niece Donna, who went way too early and who mum continually mourned for, greeted her. She has broken free of all the dirt & grime & filth of this world and has been returned to her glorious spiritual form. Her healing as begun and she is enveloped in a pure love that has no end. That my mum is so happy today brings me peace and contentment. I mourn her loss and I miss her, but I know that families are eternal, she is our mother still, always a grandmother and one day she will see her great-grandchildren born.

At Mama Mia

Follow the Prophets

Well, this last week has been quite a rollercoaster of a ride, not with just the policy announcements but with the reactions of people surrounding these policy announcements. Lots of people have been left licking wounds and I have to admit I am one of them, though my wounds have not come from the policy changes but from peoples reactions to them and some of those have left me extremely battered. So much so that when friends have reached out to me to help me find resolution I have felt attacked when there was no attack there, only love and concern, but I have felt very tender at times. So I'm writing this blog post not only in response to certain things that have been posted on the internet but also to clear my mind & get things off my chest in an attempt to move on.

There have been posts that have called into question those of us that have had issues/problems. There have been claims that we are apostates for struggling to come to terms with these policy changes, or for disagreeing with them. That everything that issues forth from the governing authorities is inspired revelation and they cannot make mistakes and we should just fall into line & quit our whinging or leave the church.

I'm going to tackle the last comment first and relate a story involving Brigham Young and a Salt Lake bishop called Edwin Woolley that I recently read about in

"Brigham Young; an American Moses" by Leonard J Arrington. In this Pres Young & Bishop Woolley have had a stand up row over some policy Pres Young wanted to implement and at the end of the row Pres Young retorts to Woolley "Well I guess you're now going to go off and apostatise". Bishop Woolley responded with "Well if this was your church President Young I probably would, but this church is as much mine as it is yours and why should I apostatise from my own church". So I echo that statement, this is my church as much as anyone else's, and I ain't going anywhere. My Heavenly Father made it abundantly clear to me that this is where He wants me & this is where I'll be. Irrespective of the opinion of any member of the church!

So what about struggling to come to terms with new pronouncements from church headquarters, wether they be doctrine or principle? Well, once again I am going to refer back to Brigham Young on this one who when he was first taught the principle of plural marriage said he would rather die. We also know the Joseph Smith also struggled to come to terms with plural marriage and was threatened with destruction if he did not comply. It is also well

documented that Emma also struggled with, and disagreed with, the principle and continued to do so all her life; well past Joseph's death. Let's look at the great example, our Saviour, even He struggled with what he had to do. In the garden of Gethsemane as the full weight of taking upon him all our sins bared down on him he cried out "Father if thou be willing remove this cup from me." He didn't say this because this was easy for him, he was struggling, really struggling, and he wanted out! But it's the "but not my will but thine" that makes the difference. It's OK to struggle and even disagree with pronouncements that come out of church headquarters, as long as it's accompanied with "but not my will but thine."

So then we come to the last point that everything that comes from the brethren is inspired, comes from God & cannot be wrong; or in other words they cannot make mistakes regarding church policy. Well, anyone who says this seriously doesn't know their church history because there have been many instances where they have been. This has even been canonised in D&C 3 where Joseph Smith is rebuked by The Lord for his mistakes regarding the lost 116 pages. Then we have the case of the Kirtland Safety Society which President Smith set up in Kirtland as a banking system for church members & issued it's own bank notes (which was quite standard in the 19thC for american banks to do). The

bank failed and many members, including members of the 12, lost their investments and Joseph was accused of fraudulently running an illegal bank. The failure of the bank was so shattering that later Heber C Kimball would say that  "there were not 20 persons that would say Joseph Smith was a prophet of God." We also have the ban on those of African lineage from holding the priesthood, a ban which those of my generation and older will remember being believed as doctrine by the church. We were taught that this ban was brought upon by the curse of Cain, I could even argue this point scripturally, and there were those who believed & taught that those born into this ban must've been less valiant in the pre-existence. Today the church admits that the ban was more based upon social beliefs of the time than any divine mandate [in fact believing the African peoples were descended from Cain was a normal 19thC North American christian belief]. If you still disbelieve that church leaders in the past have made mistakes then take it from President Dieter F Uchtdorf who said in his October 13 Genral Conference talk Come Join With Us "And to be perfectly frank there have been times when members or leaders in the church have simply made mistakes. There may have been things said or done that were not in harmony with our values, principles or doctrine." So we can see that in our history our church leaders have made mistakes, some costly, and it would be the height of hubris to think it could not happen today or in the future.

So we can see that it is not an apostate act to struggle with HQ announcements, and that our leaders can make mistakes regarding policy, so why should we follow them? Because their entire agenda is to get souls back to Christ, and while every now and again they make wrong decision that causes the good ship LDS to head into a storm, they will keep us in the right direction. They will get us to our destination. You see when we turn to others for our answers we become subject to their whims, their agendas & their discontent. We become subject to their vanities and their pride. While in Utah I had the privilege of spending some time with an apostle of the Lord and I could feel of his love for us, all of us. As I spent time with his family & saw their values, that he had instilled in them, I could see this was a family with Christ at the centre of their lives. A family that judges people by the content of their heart, not by their actions. Yes, the brethren may make mistakes at times, but the desire of their heart is to get us home.

While I was studying the Book of Mormon the other night I was reading about Lehi's dream of the iron rod, along with a Book of Mormon study guide and in it the author points out that the great & spacious building is lifted above the ground, so how do the people get into it? They are lifted up with the pride of their hearts and their vain & foolish vanities, the righteous when they get to the Tree of Life fall to the floor in humility. So while it is OK to struggle with policy decisions made by the brethren, to disagree with some of their decisions, to be hurt & feel pain, and to express that hurt & seek comfort we must be careful not

to let that that lift us up in pride. Why is there an Iron Rod on the straight and narrow path unless the Lord knew that the journey may get rough at times and we would need to hold onto something? But we must keep ourselves humble before the Lord and seek His guidance in our lives in how we can use that pain to fuel ourselves forward, to seek the atonement to heal our pain & to forgive those that hurt us. So the next time the good ship LDS hits a storm maybe the true test of discipleship isn't to blindly follow like robots, but as some of our shipmates are tossed about when their safety straps break loose is to wrap our arms around them to help keep them safe rather than grumble and complain because they're not sitting in their seats.

Suffer The Little Children

So this week has seen an announcement from the church in relation to a policy change to same-sex couples and their children. This announcement has rocked the Mormon world and it's reverberations are still being felt and will continue to be felt for a long time. News was leaked about this change before the church was able to present it in the most diplomatic fashion, which hasn't helped in the reception, and left almost every gay mormon man, wherever they fall on the spectrum, struggling to get their heads around this one. I'm still struggling to get my head around it myself at the moment, despite many conversations with many friends over the last couple of days. Intellectually it's easy to see that this is just an extension of the church's policy regarding polygamous families, but there are differences, some minor & some not so, that doesn't make this such a clear cut case as polygamy. 

First I think the church adapting the handbook to officially declare anyone who enters into a gay marriage to be in 'apostasy' expected if not welcome, it had to make lay leaders clear where the lines are so that there could be no misunderstanding; i.e. some local leaders excommunicating gay married couples and some not. There needed to be consistency. It's the new policy that the children of gay couples will have to wait until they're 18, left home & dis-a-vow gay marriages that is causing a whole shit storm in the LDS community. At first on the surface this seems to be clear cut, it's the same policy as for the children of polygamous families and is set up to protect those children from contention between church beliefs and their home life, but there're differences that aren't being considered. It's pretty much a standard that poly families don't attend LDS congregations, and will usually attend their own churches and raise those children within that church, whereas there are many gay couples who love the church, attend church weekly & have a testimony of the restored gospel that will want to have their children go through all the landmark stages that we go through growing up in the church that will have to sit there & watch their children denied those moments and blessings. Who will have to explain to their child the reason as to why all their friends in primary are getting baptised but they can't, having to explain to their son why he can't be ordained to the priesthood and pass the sacrament. Knowing all the difficulties that will be awaiting them as they grow up but not having received the gift of the Holy Ghost to guide them through it

But even then that's not the end of the differences. What about the man who followed the church's council of the 70's & 80's to marry the gay away and now have a divorce behind them and joint custody of the kids? They're now in a relationship with a man and are happy for their wife to raise their child within the church, but now because they have joint custody that child's baptism has to be cancelled due to new church policy? [true story by the way] How are these children being protected? They still go to church every Sunday and hear the same lessons & talks regarding the Plan of Salvation & the centrality of marriage between man & a woman, will go to their gay parents home's knowing the church teaches against it, but will be denied all the blessings of church membership, including the gift of the Holy Ghost, to help them through it. They won't understand that the church is trying to protect them from conflict, they will just see the church denying them & keeping them on the outside.

I have no doubt that this policy has come about with the best of intentions but I find it difficult to accept that every possible scenario has been contemplated. By labelling gay parents as apostates we are automatically assuming that they are anti the church when that just isn't always the case.

I have shared with many of you my struggles of my teenage years, how I was suicidal through most of my teens and often cried myself to sleep praying that Heavenly Father would take me. My story is not a unique story & is pretty much basic for a gay mormon teen, well the news this week has pushed some of those teens off their cliff. So while some are sitting there patting themselves on the back for following the prophet can we at least be mindful of the gay youth sobbing into their parents chests as they see this as their church not loving them, for those who have attempted suicide these past few days, for those parents getting texts from their children saying they never want to see their parent again because the prophet has spoken. While some are crowing how this is sorting the wheat from the tares, can we remember that good people who love their Saviour have had their world rocked by the announcements this weekend. As my newsfeed rolls through all these stories, and countless like them, of the pain and suffering of this weekend I really am having a hard time rejoicing in the good of this change.

And to the arsehole who leaked this information before the church had a chance to present these changes in a more diplomatic fashion, I hope you appreciate that in your eagerness to attack the church your methods have added to the pain and suffering that this announcement has caused.