March 14, 2021
Dear Ward Family
Today we experience the wonder of having our clocks spring forward one hour, so if you’re reading this at 9:00 am and haven’t changed your clock yet, it’s really 10:00 am and you’re late for church.
It seems hard to believe that we are about to enter our second year of the Covid 19 pandemic. Great hope seems to have sprung among the nations of the world where the various vaccines have been approved and are being administered. However, with the rise of yearning for a cure to the virus and a return to the way things were, we are cautioned to not let down our guard down too quickly.
I pray each day, as I’m sure most of you do, that we can once again meet with family and friends and that we can visit the sick and the weary, the widowed and the infirm.
In the meantime, please continue to reach out to those around you. While the disease is potentially terminal, a major treatment, i.e. social isolation, brings its own form of pain and anguish. At no time in history have we been able to freely communicate via technology as we have today. Please take advantage of that great gift.
Lori and I have been talking this week about the idea of “opposition in all things”, and what that really means. The discussion began when we were watching a recorded episode of our favourite joint TV program “NCIS”. I should preface this by saying Lori had a fall this week and will be out of commission for a time. A tremendous thank you to Dr./Brother Eagle Bear and his kindness and skill in dealing with Lori’s injury. And also a tremendous thank you to the Schow family for watching over Lori until I was able to get back to town.
Anyway, we were laying in bed watching the TV when one of the characters said something quite profound when trying to console another character who just got bad news from home. On the subject of trials, he said:
Stars can’t shine without darkness
I went looking for the source of that quote and came up with several, but the one I really like is attributed to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. who said:
Only in the darkness, can you see the stars
I like the Dr. King version better for some reason. Maybe it’s because the stars are there all the time, doing their very best to shine, but only darkness allows them to truly be seen.
Anyway, maybe it was our current trial, or maybe it was just an epiphany regarding our bump in the road that lead us to have the discussion about opposition.
I turned to 2 Nephi 2 and read Lehi’s words of counsel to Jacob, particularly verse 11 where he says:
For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things. If not so, my firstborn in the wilderness, righteousness could not be brought to pass, neither wickedness, neither holiness nor misery, neither good nor bad. Wherefore, all things must needs be a compound in one; wherefore, if it should be one body it must needs remain as dead, having no life neither death, nor corruption nor incorruption, happiness nor misery, neither sense nor insensibility.
Further study into this verse lead me to understand that the Lehi’s meaning is far deeper than I had imagined. It is relatively simple for us to understand that until we have tasted something bitter, we can never truly appreciate the sweet, and vice versa. Indeed, we may even welcome the contrast in order to fully understand, however, we are likely less enamoured with the idea that we need to suffer misery in order to be grateful for happiness.
This idea of opposition in all things is explained somewhat when we read, just a few verses later, Lehi’s account of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden where they succumbed to temptation:
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.
We are directed to have joy, both in this life and the next, but we cannot, by extension, comprehend joy without first understanding sorrow.
Elder Bruce C. Hafen, later of the 1st Quorum of the Seventy and now with emeritus status, in 1989 published a book with Deseret Book entitled “The Broken Heart: Applying the Atonement to the Life Experience”. At the time, he was Dean of the J. Rueben Clark Law School at BYU.
In chapter 3, he quotes an account from his wife, Marie concerning this topic of opposition and joy and particularly applying it to the decision to start a family shortly after their marriage:
In my case, here is what all that meant in a down-to-earth sense. After making the great leap of faith involved in deciding to have our first child whenever Mother Nature wanted to send him or her, how was the joyful news of pregnancy made manifest? I was sick. Odd way to be showered with "joy." For part of each day for several months, I felt one degree of terrible or another. It was morning sickness "ad nauseum." Then about four weeks before delivery, I threatened to miscarry, so I spent a number of days in bed, which seriously complicated the classes I was both taking and teaching. But when the big day finally came, even the hours of labor were worth it, as I lay there in my hospital bed holding that beautiful little boy in my arms, his reddish hair already hinting at his temperament. I thought, "Nothing could be more wonderful than this. Surely the world stops for such a beautiful baby." I can remember being shocked when I heard that another mother had another baby just minutes after I had had ours. It seemed our experience had been unique, nonrepeatable. The day after the baby was born, I was cuddling him happily in my hospital room when my doctor came in. He was my uncle and quite a salty character. He looked at us and said cheerily, "How does it feel to have the easiest part over with?" "Easiest part?" I asked. "Why, sure," he replied. "It's the next twenty years that are going to be tough."
Now, almost exactly twenty years later, I understand. After all the diapers, the bruises, the washing, the cheering, the cleaning up, the pleading, the nail-biting, the crying, the laughing, the pacing, and the praying, I understand. I feel about raising children the way Ammon felt about missionary work. "And this is the account of Ammon and his brethren, their journeyings in the land of Nephi, their sufferings in the land, their sorrows, and their afflictions, and their incomprehensible joy." (Alma 28:8.)
I can’t help but think that as a world, we are currently experiencing one of those moments. We have, for the past year been thwarted from our efforts to meet with family, as a ward, or to even travel far from our homes. We have not been able to join together for a ward dinner, to enjoy a sporting event or to, on occasion, even shop for clothing. Perhaps most importantly, we have been unable, for a very long time, to attend the temple to there perform ordinances as we have done for so long.
And yet, while it appears we have been stymied, the Lord has foreseen this time and has made provision for us to continue to serve. The challenge is as much for us remaining faithful and engaged in the work as it is in the actual pandemic itself, or in other words to seek out the stars and even become stars, in a time of darkness.
This past week, we had the 5th member of our ward pass away during this pandemic. Brother Grant Nelson left this life during a time when the family that he loved was largely unable to spend time with him. And yet, when that family gathered last Saturday to both celebrate the life and mourn the loss of their patriarch, they did so with a knowledge that they will someday be reunited.
That hope that is founded in the Plan of Salvation and made possible by the Atonement of Jesus Christ is similarly the foundation of our current hope that this too shall pass and we can be together again with family and ward members where we can throw our arms around each other and express in person our love.
Our Father in Heaven and His Son love us dearly. Through them, we can have joy both here and in the next life. I testify to this truth.
Much is going to happen in the next little while. We have Stake Conference on March 27 and 28, with General Conference the following weekend, which, coincidentally, is also Easter weekend.
I’m told by President Ferguson that commencing April 11, we will begin having Sacrament meeting each Sunday. As to the time and schedule, that has yet to be determined. We will let you know as soon as we find out.
We love you all.
Stay safe, stay healthy and social distance.
Bishop Brooks
