In the sacrament we experience, as the hymn would have it, “communion sweet.” Why does that communion require bread and water, or analogs to them?
Author: Adam G.
Husband, father, soldier, lawyer, reader, writer, gardener, dreamer. Adam co-founded Times and Seasons in 2003, and blogged here from 2003 to 2009. He currently blogs at Junior Ganymede and sometimes cross-posts at Times and Seasons.
Woefully Arrayed
Thanks to The Atlantic, I’m in the middle of reading the book From the Hook of Holland to the Horn of Constantinople. When the author was in his late teens in the early 30s, he decided on a whim to walk across Europe and this is his memoir.
Falls, Gardens, Deaths
In New Mexico the weeks before Thanksgiving are High Fall, autumn in abundance, all gold colors and fruits. Thanksgiving is the high point of that season, and also its end. Then its sand hill crane season, Christmas, and winter.
Pioneer Children
A week has passed since Pioneer Day. I was moved by the memorials here and in my sacrament meeting, where the speakers called us to reflect on, in President Hinckley’s words, the “long shadow” the pioneers cast in which we still find some shelter from the heat of the times. The shadow is real, I think. Some of us are here because of them. In law school I met a girl whose ancestors had joined the kingdom in England and crossed the ocean. Like many, they lingered for a few years at the eastern terminus of the trail to raise money. But somehow they never made it across the plains, they never became pioneer. Now generations of that family have passed in the full light of the world, faith has dried up and withered away, and this daughter of theirs is a Catholic with the usual obscure notions of the Church.
The God We Hold Hostage
I and my good wife went to the temple last night. Through me, through Adam, through Christ, a 17th century Saxon named Christoph H. came into God’s presence. Or came closer to it, anyway.
Mr. Krueger’s Christmas (Eve)
We watched Mr. Krueger’s Christmas a few nights ago. It’s not half bad.
Do we matter at all? Are we stones that leave no ripples?
We love God because he’s just. We look at children in bad homes and console ourselves with knowing that their day will come. Every blessing God has offered us he’ll offer them and through grace he’ll clear them of whatever would impede their choice. We see the cemeteries full of people the gospel never reached and we’re pleased to think of baptisms for the dead. When we ourselves have sinned in our parenting or our friendship or our calling and it seems very much like we’ve made it harder for our children or our husband or our friend to accept Christ and the Gospel we remember that men are punished for their own sins and not for ours. If we mess up, someone else will fix it, or God will offer grace if only our victims will accept it. We are comforted. We can hardly even bear all the inequity that natural disaster and inexorable history and wicked men do, even knowing that its all just a trial and a probation. Could we stand to think that even the probation was unfair? No. Everyone will have their equal chance to choose God and salvation. We can’t ruin it. Frank McIntyre brought this up today. “It should not be the case that I am punished for being what God (or other people) made me. I am only responsible for that part of me that is eternally me. And what is that?…
Peace on Earth, Goodwill to Men
Our mission Christmases were mostly lonely times, but God gave us a gift on the second one. We had made little scrolls that we tied in red ribbon. On the scrolls we had printed a short message that said: “Silver and Gold have we none, but that which we have we give unto you. Two thousand years ago the Savior said, ‘Peace I leave with you, Peace I give unto you.’ We give you our love, and our wish that the Savior’s peace be with you.” We went caroling to the members and the neighbors and left them with a scroll.
The Contradictory Commandments of Adam and Eve
In Institute we wondered why God would give contradictory commandments: Adam and Eve were told to multiply and replenish the earth, and they were told not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge of good and evil. These commandments, the scriptures plainly state, contradict each other. See 2 Nephi 2:22-23.