CHARITY AFTER THE BICKERING

Just got this great comment from Presh - after I re-read the piece myself this afternoon:

Thank you for your blog. I derive a lot of good information from it. And thank you for the heads-up about the book. I just ordered a copy from Barnes and Noble. 2 things: 1) I haven't seen that you've mentioned Julie Rowe's latest book. I read it on Kindle the day it came out. Would love to hear your impression of it. I enjoyed it! 2) I always get the feeling that you are looking forward to people being wiped out or destroyed. For example, this quote from your above article: "Welcome to the great sift, folks. This whole marriage thing (including the gay mess) is really getting juicy! Enjoy the foray. Take bets on which of your friends and family will not make it thru the doctrinal and testimonial maelstrom." Wow, using words like "welcome to," "getting juicy," "enjoy," "take bets" sounds anything but charitable to me. Just my opinion...but aren't you heartbroken at the thought of loved-ones and friends being on the "outs?

After a second read the day following the writing, it did sound kind of harsh to me, as well.  I guess you could say I have gotten extremely fed up with people who have called Joseph a pervert after finding this stuff out - instead of giving him the benefit of the doubt after having judged the mountain of other evidence to the contrary.  I have a few close family members who have done just this - and generally, who have been otherwise hard hearted and faithless in their walk.  This despite my best efforts to try and get them to see the light.  After frustrating year after frustrating year of watching them kick against the pricks (and even attack my character in a similar vein to the spirit in which they attacked Joseph's - calling me an animal, adulterer, etc etc etc), I say burn in hell for a little while until you figure it out.  The best way to reform somebody is to take away even that which they have (in the case of criticizing some of the best people to walk the face of the earth - the would be the removal of the Holy Ghost).  Once they have marinated in their own misery, they will finally come crawling back and admit the mess they created.  Martin Harris comes to mind.  In the case of my loved ones - that would include their fruits which includes the other destroyed lives and wreckage they left behind.  Which they will be responsible for - as "a generation of vipers shall not escape the damnations of hell".  Yep, it was a little uncharitable, but you have to understand that I have seen someone with Stage 1 cancer remove the breast or nodes and have bad scars and some pain.  I have also seen those who left the cancer to fester until it reached a Stage 4, and then they had hundreds of times the cancer growth and pain - and a grisly death to show for it.  In my analytical mind (a little cold or unfeeling at times), it is MUCH better to deal with the hurt up front than to deal with a world of hurt later on.  In the war in heaven, we lost a third of our spiritual siblings - but who knows how much more wreckage would have ensued had they gone on yet another eternity before they were cast out.  The whole bickering mess must have been too much for Parents who are ordered, clean, and not used to drama in the Celestial Home.  To have it gone would have been priceless.

When I speak of family members who have fallen over this concept, both are probably struggling with unrepented sexual sin, yet would be the first to start lobbing stones at Joseph Smith for his "sexual deviancy" of plural wives.  From what I understand, one of these individuals in my family even had an affair with a BYU professor years ago when she was a student......  Yet, would accuse me of being less than a perfect person in this area, etc.  Would not give Joseph Smith, etc the benefit of the doubt in this case.  We excised these two from the family - and the drama suddenly died and normalcy has returned to the "castle".  Identical (in my mind) how it must have been those millennia ago in the courts of heaven when satan and his minions were cast out......  Peace at last.

I see this timing as an excising within our Church.  We have way too many who are "social mormons" but who have no real deep and abiding foundation.  This makes for an inherently weak whole body.  I would prefer the tree hacked down to the root, but that comes back stronger than one that is weak and infested with defects in it's trunk.  I think the first one will make out better, longer over time.

Am I sad that all are not saved?  Yep - this is God's stated work.  But - I also know that there are wolves lurking and they do so among the luke warm members of the Church.  A good purge is necessary, now and again.....  This most likely will be it. 

There were seven women (and one man - I thought the number was odd, and so did my wife) who made it into a Priesthood session in Ogden, UT and they made it into the news.  Probably the SLTrib (the nasty rag that it is)......  One of the women was my wife's former  BYU room mate who is a managing editor of the Sunstone (another lovely rag....).  Real rif-raf that needs to just self-excise from the Church already....   The Koriwhores are going out the door with the rest of the trash.  Indeed there will be mourning that they did not get it turned around in time to work out their salvation, but no love lost over the lack of peace that was experienced before the purge.

It is all part of the plan.  The good, the bad.  The ugly, the pretty.  I guess I have more or less consigned myself to the inevitability of it all......