Monday, May 26, 2025

How to Accept and be grateful for the many gifts God has given (Sacrament Talk May 25, 2025)

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    I had a friend who wrote about how when she was four years old, it seemed forever until her next birthday or Christmas.  After all, a year in the life of a four year old is a fourth of their life.

     

    It seemed to her that as she got older, the time until Christmas or a birthday became shorter.  After all, when she was 80, a year was only 1/80th of her life.  When compared to the time, when she was a young child it was like Christmas and Birthdays were coming twice a month.

     

    That got me to thinking about how a year will be in the hereafter, when we have even more time.  For example in 800 years, one year is 1/800 of the time we have had.  That is 1/800 or 200 times shorter than one year in the life of a child.  In 8,000 years it is 2,000 times shorter than it was in the life of that young child..

     

    100 years to someone who is 8,000 years old is like the time to next Christmas to someone who is 80.

     

    That gave me some perspective. When the scriptures talk about the eternities, that is a very long time, and it makes each year even shorter in comparison.

     

    I took my wife to France for our twentieth wedding anniversary. 

     

    As a part of the trip we went to Versailles.  There we saw the palace of France’s most well known king whose nickname was “the Sun King” and we saw his famous hall of mirrors, famous because of how expensive and rare mirrors were then. 

     

    I realized a couple things.  First, if I tried to put mirrors like that in my house, instead of it being considered extravagantly, it would just be tacky.  Second, my house, with air conditioning and central heating and modern plumbing and my comfortable bed was more comfortable to live in and gave me a better standard of living than the Sun King had.

     

    Louis XIV, also known as the Sun King, ruled France from 1643 to 1715. He had the highest standard of living in the world in that era.  

     

    By the time I visited his palace, just about three hundred years later, his standard went from the most extravagant and highest standard of life in the world to sub-par an ordinary life in the suburbs. 

     

    It made me think that if heaven were only four hundred years ahead of where we are now in terms of technology and understanding, then it is probably unimaginably better than our lives are, the same way that my life now, with the food I eat and air conditioning, is that much better than Louis XIV’s life was about three hundred years ago.

     

    Then years ago, I was on  listening to the radio and a story came on about an anthropologist working in the jungle.  He wore a lot of mud to keep the biting insects off and he ate a lot of grubs.  He also had a native guide and the two of them were visiting a tribe deeper in the jungle when they had a feast day.

     

    In the middle of the feast, he realized it was Thanksgiving, and there he was covered in mud and eating grubs.  His guide noticed the anthropologist’s expression, and nudged him.

     

    “I know how you feel.  Back home in my village our grubs taste so much better too.”

     

    I realized that in comparison to what things were like in the pre-existence and as they will be, we are like that poor guy covered in mud and eating grubs.

     

    There are several realizations there.

     

    One, how short life is.

     

    Two, how much better life could be.

     

    Three, how even the best experiences we can have from an eternal perspective are not that far from being covered in mud and eating grubs.

     

    It becomes tempting to use that to downplay suffering, pain and the difficulties of human existence.  Which I think is a terrible mistake.  It is also the reason God has given us the gift of forgetting our premortal existence.

     

    That allows us to not treat life like a temporary thing that does not have real meaning.

     

    Instead, we are living life in the here and now, time is real to us, and our hardships and blessings are real.  The gifts we give and receive are real.

     

    Gift giving is a part of all cultures and civilizations.  People always share gifts.  With gifts we strengthen friendships, express love, share gratitude and mark important events.  Weddings, birthdays, and holidays, like Christmas, are marked by gifts.

     

    Humans are not the only creatures to give gifts.  Penguins give rocks to prospective mates as a part of courting.  Ravens and crows give gifts to each other and have even been observed to give gifts to humans they favor.  Many of the various types of apes give fruit, or grubs, to expand and create friendships. 

     

    In reflecting on this, it helps to reflect on gifts we have given.  Think of the times you have found the perfect gift for someone.  The times you found a gift for your mother.  Gifts given to friends, children and teachers.  Gifts you have given to other family members.

     

    Think about how you felt when you found the gift you intended to give.  Think about how you felt when you anticipated their getting the gift or about how you felt when someone gave you the perfect gift.

     

    I’m sure everyone in the audience has had gifts that they have received and treasured.

     

    God gives us gifts too, which is the topic of the talk I was assigned to give.

     

    Thinking about gifts helps us to understand the three parts of gift giving and receiving as laid out by Elder Patrick Kearon.

     

    First, there is the giving of a gift, where someone selects, prepares or creates a gift and gives it to the person they want to have the gift.  There is intent to give a gift.

     

    Second, accepting and recognizing the gift where the person receiving the gift accepts the gift and recognizes that it is a gift.

     

    Third, receiving the gift.  That is more than just unwrapping a gift or recognizing that someone has given you a gift.  It is understanding that you have received something of value and completing the circle by expressing gratitude.

     

    In many ways, to receive a gift is the intentional part of the process, beyond merely having a gift in your possession.  Reception is the word used for when a gift strengthens the bonds between the giver and the receiver.  It is when the gift cycle moves from acceptance to connection.

     

    This step becomes important as we consider gifts from God.

     

    There is much in our lives that consists of gifts from our Heavenly Father to us.

     

    This begins with being able to be in this life and to experience it as real and meaningful.

     

    When you trip and fall, your trip, your fall, and your pain are all real and meaningful.  When you have loss or pain or care or suffering, it is real, it has meaning.  It is not that the pain you have is transitory and won’t matter in a thousand years, because you do not remember a thousand years, that is not  your current state.  You remember this life and what you have lived.

     

    So the first gift we have from God is  that what we experience is real and it is meaningful in the lives we remember and the lives that we have.

     

    The next or second gift is that just as our lives are real and meaningful, so are the lives of those we meet and those we know in this life.

     

    When I give a gift or do something, while from an eternal perspective my gift may be the same as a feast of grubs, in the present time and perspective my gift is meaningful.  When I buy my grandchild a swim suit, from an eternal perspective it might not be much better than a coat of mud given to an anthropologist. 

     

    But in the present, to my grandchild, it means something, it is real to them.

     

    The third gift we have is that the good things we have in life that we take pleasure in, those things are real to us and we can appreciate them and be grateful.

     

    I can be grateful for my clothes.  I can be grateful for my home.

     

    When I was younger and my dad gave me a Chevy Vega, I could be grateful for it.  When I had a chance to watch television on a black and white TV that was 10” across, I could be grateful and I could enjoy it.

     

    Each of us can take joy and be happy in the moment.

     

    We can give and receive gifts, and we can take this life as a gift and see it as a joyful thing in the present.

     

    We can also accept and experience the losses and pains we have in the present as real and we can have compassion for the real losses and pains others feel.

     

    With a perspective that comes from not remembering thousand of years in the past, we can be in the present and be there for each other, with real kindness and empathy. We can focus on the here and now.  When we focus on this life—instead of the hereafter—we are present for ourselves and we are present for others.

     

    We are involved.

     

    Beyond the present, we can also expand our understanding of the gifts God has for us as our parent and in giving us Christ.

     

    First, that means we can accept that we are really God’s children and the truth that God loves us.

     

    Second, we can accept and receive that, to pull from scripture “In the gift of his Son hath God prepared [for us] a more excellent way” .

     

    That is important because without this perspective, knowledge can make us miserable.  That is because so much in life is painful, filled with loss and unfair.

     

    Paul said that without the gift of Christ we would be of all mankind the most unhappy and the most miserable.

     

    This is because the gospel lets us know both what can be and what should be.  It highlights what is wrong and what is unfair.  The pain and the loss that comes to the world, the same pain and loss we experience and that we are taught to have compassion for in others.

     

    Without Christ, we have only the unfairness, pain and loss.

     

    But with Christ we have the gift of the son of God, his love, his forgiveness and his healing. 

     

    It is also the knowledge that it is a gift.

     

    We need not be “deserving” of that gift.  We do not need to deserve love or to be a child of God.  The truth is that none of us receives that gift because we are deserving.  Instead we receive it through Christ freely as a gift.

     

    That is important.

     

    We did not have to be deserving to have the gift of forgetting so that we could appreciate the world we are in.

     

    We did not have to earn the gift of our lives being meaningful and real.  We only have to realize and accept that our lives are meaningful and real.

     

    We did not have to earn the gift of being able to take joy in the lives we have.  We only have to realize and accept the joy in the lives that we have.

     

    We do not need to be deserving to be children of our heavenly father or to have hope in Christ.

     

    Instead, we need to accept and recognize that we are children of our Heavenly father and that Christ came to give us hope.

     

    We then complete that cycle by being grateful for the love of God and Christ and giving place for it in our hearts.

     

    So God has given us many gifts. He deserves a thank  you note.

     

    We can recognize the gifts God has given us.  We can recognize the gift of a real and meaningful life.  We can recognize the joys we find in life.  We can recognize that we are children of our heavenly Father and finally, we can recognize that Christ was given to us to bless and heal us.

     

    Then we complete the cycle by understanding that we have received gifts that have value and we complete the circle by expressing gratitude to God.

     

    That allows us to constantly accept and be grateful for the many gifts God has given.

     

    In the name of God’s greatest gift, Jesus Christ, Amen.


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Tuesday, September 26, 2023

 My blogging history (old links).

I'm suddenly back involved with gaming.

Backpacking has become a major part of my life.  My wife and I finally finished the Appalachian Trail and will be starting the Pacific Crest Trail in 2022.
  • https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=d20%27s%20h%20pageiking
  • My current backpacking blog:  https://adrr.com/d20/
I have not blogged much more here.  Most spiritual posts and thoughts will have been at https://wheatandtares.org/ which has a lot of variability in the content.

The bottom line is that grief and loss happened to me, but they did not become me.

https://adrr.com/d20/ is where to look at what I'm mostly doing these days, outside of non-hiking projects.
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Sacrament talk on coveting

 

I was asked to talk on the tenth and final commandment “Thou shall not covet.”

 

The Hebrew word translated "covet" is chamad (חמד) which is commonly translated into English as "covet", "lust", and "strong desire." The word means yearn to possess or have (something).  In the tenth commandment we are warned not to year to possess or have things that others already have.  Not their husband or wife.  Not their house. Not those who work for them.  Not their mode of transportation or the things they use to earn a living or anything else.

 

It is interesting that Elder Tom Perry stated that of the ten commandments, too often people dismissed the tenth as one that they do not find important.  He warned that Coveting, or envying something that belongs to another, is damaging to the soul. It can consume our thoughts and plague us with constant unhappiness and dissatisfaction. It often leads to other sins and to financial indebtedness.

 

Traditionally in Christianity the commandment to not covet has been linked to with the command to "love your neighbor as yourself."  That is, to long for things that are another’s is the opposite of loving them, to not covet what others have is the first step towards loving them.

In addition, not coveting is to avoid the first step that leads to other sins. 

 

In traditional Judaism, coveting was seen as the first step that led to theft or murder. 

 

Coveting also leads to entanglement in the world.  Christ spoke on this very point in response to someone who interrupted Christ giving a sermon about relying on the Spirit.  The man interrupted to ask about the man’s brother’s refusal to divide an inheritance with him.

 

Let me read from the scriptures to you, from the Gospel of Luke.

 

13 And one of the company said unto him, Master, speak to my brother, that he divide the inheritance with me.

 

14 And he said unto him, Man, who made me a judge or a divider over you?

 

15 And he said unto them, Take heed, and beware of covetousness: for a man's life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth.

 

16 And he spake a parable unto them, saying, The ground of a certain rich man brought forth plentifully:

 

17 And he thought within himself, saying, What shall I do, because I have no room where to bestow my fruits?

 

18 And he said, This will I do: I will pull down my barns, and build greater; and there will I bestow all my fruits and my goods.

 

19 And I will say to my soul, Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry.

 

20 But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required of thee: then whose shall those things be, which thou hast provided?

 

21 So is he that layeth up treasure for himself, and is not rich toward God.

 

22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.

 

23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.

 

24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?

 

25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?

 

26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?

 

27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.

 

28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?

 

Christ warns against coveting because Coveting causes us to focus on things, and to treat people as things. Coveting causes us to not trust or follow God. 

 

To better illustrate Coveting I am going to go to some stories in the Bible.

 

I will start with the story of Cain and Abel from Moses Chapter 5.

 

32 And Cain went into the field, and Cain talked with Abel, his brother. And it came to pass that while they were in the field, Cain rose up against Abel, his brother, and slew him.

 

33 And Cain agloried in that which he had done, saying: I am free; surely the bflocks of my brother falleth into my hands.

 

There are many reasons why Cain slew Abel, but a key facet is that he gloried in the result, that he took possession of the flocks that were his brother’s.  Coveting and greed were a part in what led him to murder.

 

There is another story.

 

There was a king.  He had two generals.  The grand daughter of one of the generals was the daughter of another general and was married to the equivalent of the king’s head of Seal Team Six.  They called the elite of the elite something else in those days, but comparing them to our Seal Team Six captures the heart of what it meant to be the elite of the elite, a mighty man at the hand of the king.

 

The married daughter’s home was within the walls of the Inner part of the city, a hill top reserved for the king and those very important to him.

 

You probably know this as the story of David and Bathsheba. Not only did David have Bathsheba’s husband murdered, but as a result he turned two of his generals away from him, another of his sons rebelled against him, most of his wives were separated from him, and his reign was almost extinguished. 

 

David’s son Solomon killed another one of David’s sons, Adonijah, for coveting the throne and David’s last wife. Coveting brought ruin and disaster upon most of David’s house, much of it in his life, and the rest not that long after his death.

 

God even called the prophet Nahum to chastise David for coveting.

 

Later, in the book of Micah, God called the Prophet Micah to chastise those who led the people of Israel for coveting.  He said.

 

1 Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.

 

2 And they covet fields, and take them by violence; and houses, and take them away: so they oppress a man and his house, even a man and his heritage

 

Coveting led the leaders to take action, the action included violence and oppressing through the governmental system so that they could take possession of what the common people had.

 

Looking to the New Testament, when the Apostles met and decided to focus on what was important to keep from the Old Law, Paul summarized the laws that were critical in Romans Chapter 13:

 

8 Owe no man anything, but to love one another: for he that loveth another hath fulfilled the law.

 

9 For this, Thou shalt not commit adultery, Thou shalt not kill, Thou shalt not steal, Thou shalt not bear false witness, Thou shalt not covet; and if there be any other commandment, it is briefly comprehended in this saying, namely, Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.

 

10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.

 

From these stories and that summary, we can take away the following points about coveting:

 

1                    Coveting is a strong desire to possess something that someone else has rather than just to have something.  Not “I want a car” for example, but rather “I want that car that belongs to someone else.”

 

2                    Coveting is never satisfied, it never has enough.

 

3                    Coveting goes beyond just desire to dwelling on the desire and seeking ways to fulfill it at the expense of others.  All of the examples of coveting in the scriptures involve theft or murder or other methods of extorting results in order to have what the person is seeking—the property and relationships of someone else.

 

4                    Coveting takes us away from God.

 

I would also note that coveting does not make us happy.

 

My undergraduate degree was in Applied Economics.  A part of economics I always liked, even if it was all done by graduate students which I never was, is called experimental economics where economists try things out to see what happens.

 

So they might compare having someone pan handling outside a bakery and then panhandling next to a sewer to see how that affects the amount of money they make.  Or they might see how paying tithing affects people economically.  They might study what winning the lottery does for people and if it makes them happy. 

 

Spoiler alert.  Winning the lottery, even tens or hundreds of millions of dollars, doesn’t make people happier for longer than about a year.

 

Economists have also studied many factors that go into what causes happiness.

 

One result of this research is that we have an area of hard science that deals with happiness.  One interesting outcome of that science is that it is now well established that people who live beneath their means are happier than people who live at their means or above their means.

 

We know that making more money makes people happier until they are making around $60,000.00 a year and then more money doesn’t mean more happiness.

 

And we know that the emotions and mental states that go into coveting the possessions and relationships of others makes people unhappy and that actually getting the things that were coveted doesn’t make people happy.

 

Coveting is a way to become profoundly unhappy.

 

So, what does the command to not covet mean, what is its significance?

 

Coveting is a gateway to sin, whether the sins be those of violence, theft or coercion.

 

Coveting leads us not to love God or our neighbors.

 

Coveting leads us to not trust or accept God.

 

And coveting makes us unhappy.

 

Avoiding covetousness makes us happier, more able to love God and our neighbors and more able to avoid other sins.

 

I leave you with this, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

 

 

 

 

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Sunday, December 19, 2021

 Just had the best birthday I've had in my life.  I'm grateful for that.

And Win is the best part of my life, which continues to improve, even thought I'm now 66.

When I was new to grief I also began to gnash my teeth, grinding them, without being aware of it.  My dentist pointed it out to me and I was able to quit grinding them during the day, but not at night.

I started using guards at that point.  The ones you can buy in a drug store would last a night or two.  I ended up with very hard plastic ones from my dentist.

Then in 2019, while hiking on the Appalachian Trail, I lost my guard and replaced it with what I could, a soft one from a drug store.  It is now 2021.  I've basically had two of them, one of which I lost rather than using up.  I've gone from getting a couple days out of one to a couple years or more -- the physical side effect of grief that has been a barometer for me has had marked changes.

Other things are better as well.  I can enjoy my birthday and the holiday season does not fill me with sorrow.

--So an update.

I'm really enjoying my life right now, much of it revolving around helping out with the grandchildren.

I'm doing so much better now.  It is like I've crossed an infinite distance.

So, I'm providing a summary here, where my grief and related blogging transitioned, to let people know where I am now.

My blogging history (old links).

I'm suddenly back involved with gaming.

Backpacking has become a major part of my life.  My wife and I finally finished the Appalachian Trail and will be starting the Pacific Crest Trail in 2022.
  • https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=d20%27s%20h%20pageiking
  • My current backpacking blog:  https://adrr.com/d20/
I probably will not blog much more here.  Spiritual posts and thoughts will probably be at https://wheatandtares.org/


Gaming posts will probably center around Shattered Norns.  

My general life and contacts with friends and family will be at https://www.facebook.com/stephen.r.marsh

Otherwise, we were on the Appalachian Trail in 2019 and then 2020.  With Covid and our condo already leased out we moved to Virginia for a year's contract and currently we are in Utah with family.  We will be on the Pacific Crest Trail in 2022.

And of course, once a year I'll be at NTRPG Con.

But I'm doing better.  I'll never be the same, but I'm in a place where I can find joy.


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Sunday, August 23, 2020

From my mission.

 Thanks to President & Sister Siddoway and the A.P.'s who put this together originally, and to President Siddoway for the enormous amount of work it was for him to make a copy for Kris Morgan Cunningham, and then thanks to her for getting it to me so that I could get it to you!!! 

Parts 1-2: https://thesoleacademy.com/…/1975-Pageant-Workbook-parts-1-…

Part 3: https://thesoleacademy.com/…/1975-Pageant-Workbook-part-3.p…

Part 4: https://thesoleacademy.com/…/1975-Pageant-Workbook-part-4.p…

Part 5: https://thesoleacademy.com/…/1975-Pageant-Workbook-part-5.p…

Parts 6-7: https://thesoleacademy.com/…/1975-Pageant-Workbook-parts-6-…

Parts 8-9: https://thesoleacademy.com/…/1975-Pageant-Workbook-parts-8-…

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