It's been a while! I have so much to say, my mind is full and I need to release the tension. Over the past month I have been unable to get a full night's rest and when awake I have so many ideas running through my brain. I cant get it to shut off, even while asleep. My wife has said maybe its best that I write down it all so that I can settle it. So here I go!
Yesterday I listened to a conference address by Gordon B Hinckley from October 1978 entitled "Behold Your Little Ones" he quoted E T Sullivan, “When God wants a great work done in the world or a great wrong righted, he goes about it in a very unusual way. He doesn’t stir up his earthquakes or send forth his thunderbolts. Instead, he has a helpless baby born, perhaps in a simple home out of some obscure mother. And then God puts the idea into the mother’s heart, and she puts it into the baby’s mind. And then God waits. The greatest forces in the world are not the earthquakes and the thunderbolts. The greatest forces in the world are babies.” This stirred my soul. I want to right a wrong and do a great work. For a very long time, in fact as long as I can remember, I have felt that I would like to do a great work, I have even been promised, "The powers of heaven will open to you that you might be able to perform a work in this mortal life that will surpass your greatest dreams..." My greatest dream is to completely change the world!
I'm not delusional in my desire but am very aware of just how difficult a goal this is. My desire is not to convert everyone, besides according to the scriptures this will not be the case. The wish is to fundamentally change the way we treat each other. I mean listen, we are all stuck on what I like to call a spaceship hurdling through space approaching a ball of gas heated to 10 million degrees, a constant danger. With debris all around barely missing us and for some reason we cant all band together and find common ground. The biggest thing we have in common is the fact that we are all here, stuck.
When it comes to real change we can rest assure that government isn't the way to achieve this, politicians are too busy trying to stay in power than to enact real change. Real change must come from grassroots efforts. From knocking on doors and sharing ideas. The government should only be there to protect our freedom to express our ideas.
My ideas are radical! I say we stand down. Disband every military in the world right now this very moment. They are a danger to our very existence. What kind of world will we leave our progenitors? There's an old Native American saying, "We do not inherit the land from our ancestors, we borrow it from our children." Something along those lines.
When you look back at war the main goal was to conquer territory and to exploit the natural resources. Now as we see with what's going on in Ukraine the rest of the world does not tolerate another nation stepping on the toes and taking land from another sovereign nation, so if this is no longer a reason for war then why not everyone disband? There is no reason we need to come to blows to settle our differences. Can we really no talk it out? The scripture states "And he shall judge among many people, and rebuke strong nations afar off; and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks: nation shall not lift up a sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." Micah 4:3 Why do we have to wait till He shows up before we do this?
I think of the great power that came from Gandhi who by laying in a bed and fasting repelled the greatest power on earth at that time out of his land. He never lifted a weapon to do this. Nonviolence! Then I think of MLK who modeled his ideals after the same nonviolent protests and changed the minds and hearts of the majority of a racist nation who needed to repent. You had Jesus Christ who while being nailed to a cross exclaimed, "Father forgive them for they know not what they do." Who also rebuked His chief apostle for lifting a sword in His defense "for all they that take the sword shall perish with the sword".
You see this is just the beginning of what I would like to discuss... I want to talk to and about my people. Here I am liking myself unto Moses who for a while had to leave his people, find Jehovah and then come back in a dramatic way with great power and authority to act on Jehovah's behalf in freeing his people. I told you I have BIG dreams. For we have so much potential and are loved by a God who wants us too to see our potential and to rise up and be men and women of peace and love and faith. I want to talk about what I think happened to us. When I think of the people of the 20's through the 60's I see a strong and resilient people, a people of honor even amidst oppression and then something happened... Slavery, again... To Be Continued...
