Christmas Tradition of Caroling

     One of my favorite Christmas traditions is singing Christmas carols. I realize not everyone celebrates Christmas, but what I have to share is primarily about the joy of the season. My mother is a singer; she sang with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir for seven years. Growing up, she would gather her children around the piano to sing. At Christmas time, she would bake cookies and give plates of them to friends and neighbors. We would go with her to deliver them, and sing a few carols to each recipient. One of our neighbors enjoyed this tradition so much that, even after moving away had us telephone them each year to hear us sing carols. I am not saying we were as good as the Osmond family (though that was my mother’s dream), but we loved sharing the joy of the Christmas season.

     I spent Christmas 2011 in Afghanistan. The Canadian junior officers invited me to participate in their tradition of caroling to the senior officers and others of the staff. For me, this made Christmas wonderful, despite being apart from my family. Whatever traditions you observe this holiday season, may you find the joy that comes only through giving.

A few pictures from end of the deployment

To be honest, uploading pictures on a slow internet connection was burdensome at times. Now that I am back home and have fast internet again, here are a few pictures from the end of the deployment.

Shannon, Ireland at the airport

On the way to Camp Blackhorse

At Kabul International Airport: time to go home!

No Tanks!

At the Religious and Cultural Affairs School

David Ness from Norway, a faithful artist at the Saturday night Painting Class!

Swanie (Australian Defence Force) gave me this slouch hat as a gift.

Mountains in Kabul

More mountains in Kabul

SGT Thomas (Australian Defence Force) and CPT Hale at Camp Alamo

Gettin' huge! CPT Hale, me, 1LT Bales, SGT Earhart

Me and SGT Thomas (Thommo)

Home

     It feels good to be home. I got back last Thursday. We flew from Afghanistan to Kyrgyzstan (2 hour flight) and stayed there a few days. Then we flew about 7 hours to Shannon, Ireland. I was overwhelmed with how green Ireland was, even from the airport. We rarely saw that kind of green in our part of Afghanistan. It was dry and arid, though we did get a hefty amount of snow in January and February. From Ireland we flew to Fort Dix, New Jersey, where we out-processed for a week. Passing through all of the medical and administrative checks was quite the undertaking. I could have stayed an extra week to get my knee checked out, but chose to get the medical care here in Minnesota. When I arrived at the airport, Emily and Josiah greeted me. Emily brought an OCP hat and put Josiah in it so we would match for pictures. I wondered if Josiah would feel weird around me, but he had no problem letting me hold him. I think skyping on a daily basis really helped. We were very fortunate in that regard; we had ready access to computers and so were able to touch base with family nearly everyday.
     Here at home I am enjoying the simple pleasures of family. I love just holding my son, Josiah, and kissing his fat little cheeks. I love listening to him laugh. Tonight, Emily and I took him to the pet store. He went nuts looking a the little puppies and fish; he is so full of energy. Emily really got things ready for my return. She even unpacked all the boxes that I had shipped home, and had a place for me to put my things like wallet and keys. She surprised me with Josiah now being in his own room, and he really likes it. She did a marvelous job with his room; it looks great! Even though we are in an apartment; we are quite happy here. We have all the room we need, and Emily has done a fantastic job of getting things organized and on top of that it looks great--she has been very busy.
     I have spent some time applying to Clinical Pastoral Education residencies; we will see what happens. It is nice to have some time to reconnect and to get situated before going back to work. The weather has been fabulous, unseasonably warm, and beautifully cool yesterday and today. Hard to believe that whole year-long deployment is over. I was blessed with a great advising assignment and am grateful for friends I made and experiences that I had. Josiah tried on his little Afghan vest and hat--they fit perfectly. One of my friends in the Afghan National Army gave them as a gift. I miss my friends there.
     Emily is making brownies....yum!

Recently

Celebrating the Lunar New Year as special guests of the Mongolian Artillery Training Team

Father Abraham

            In the scriptures we sometimes encounter the terms “milk” and “meat,” relative to how challenging certain doctrines of the Gospel are. I would like to talk about something that I feel is “meat.” We do not use this topic to introduce people to the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ; it comes later as people “grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ” (2 Peter 3:18; John 17:3). That said, I will not digress into speculation; I will hold to the words of revealed scripture. 
           In the region that we labor, Abraham is honored and revered. He is the common heritage shared by Judaism, Christianity, and Islam. From a Latter-Day perspective, I would like to address how God prepared Abraham to be a god himself. We cannot apologize for this doctrine of eternal progression;  it is at the root of all that we believe. Many misunderstand this doctrine, thinking that we demean God. In response to one such misunderstanding concerning the divinity of Christ, I replied: “The LDS Church does not seek to bring Christ down to our level; it only declares that God is able to bring us up to his. With God, all things are possible. We will never be equal with God; he is eternally progressing just as we are. Yet, we do not believe that we will remain at the same level for eternity; we will progress because of the merciful Atonement of Jesus Christ.” Indeed, through the lineage of Abraham would come the Redeemer of all mankind, to relieve suffering and deliver us from the sins of this world.
            Suffering is part of this mortal existence, and it prepares us to be like God. Isaiah referred to Christ, our advocate with the Father, as a “man of sorrows and acquainted with grief” (Isaiah 53:3). When Adam and Eve were cast out of the Garden of Eden, they were told that they would bear children and labor for bread “in sorrow” (Genesis 3:16-17). Abraham was no stranger to sorrow and suffering. After marrying Sarai, there was a famine in the land that drove him to Egypt, where he almost lost Sarai to the Pharaoh because of her beauty. God promised Abraham numberless posterity, yet Sarai was barren. How many decades passed while this promise remained a distant hope? Abram was 75 when God commanded him to leave Haran and go to the land of Canaan. He was 86 years old when Ishmael was born of Hagar. He was 100 years old when Isaac was born of Sarah. It is likely that at least four decades passed while Abraham and Sarah waited for children of their own. (Could this be why Lot, his nephew, lived with Abraham and Sarah, to ease the pain of their childless state?)
            After decades of waiting, Isaac was born to Sarah, fulfilling the promise of God. What joy this must have brought to their home! Now that he had come, would Abraham be willing to offer him as a sacrifice, to be obedient to God’s commandment? How this must have tormented Abraham! How could he give up his only son (of Sarah)? Was he willing to be like God, to give up his only son, the son of the promise? Abraham’s response revealed that he was. In Abraham’s willingness, God provided redemption. For Abraham, there was a ram in the thicket, and his son lived, fulfilling the promise of endless posterity. For God, his Son was resurrected and now lives forever, offering eternal salvation to all of God’s endless posterity.
             In the Bible Dictionary, we read that Abram means “exalted father.” Insert “ha,” and his name becomes, “Father of a multitude.” This may be simply coincidental, but in Dari, one of the primary languages of Afghanistan, the sound ha, when added to a word, makes it plural. The Hebrew word, El, denotes “might, strength…the divine being.” Elohim is “a plural form signifying the ‘almighty’ or ‘omnipotent,’ a name applied to the Father” (LDS Bible Dictionary, https://www.lds.org/scriptures/bd/el.p1?lang=eng&letter=e). God is plural, having numberless posterity, and his name denotes such. In Abram becoming Abraham, we see the pattern of godhood carried out.
             In our mortal state we are confined to knowing only our own heart and mind. Yet as we draw closer to God, “we have the mind of Christ” and through the atonement will one day become omnipotent, knowing the hearts and minds of all our children (1 Corinthians 2:16, John 17:3). We will, in essence, transcend the self, as referred to by Victor Frankl in his book, Man’s Search for Meaning and “be gods, because [we] have no end” (Doctrine and Covenants 132:20). Abraham transcended the self to receive exaltation. In this journey, Abraham experienced war, famine, waiting, and anguish. Through it all he displayed great faith, and thus it was “counted to him for righteousness” (Romans 4:3). “Abraham received all things, whatsoever he received, by revelation and commandment, by my word, saith the Lord, and hath entered into his exaltation and sitteth upon his throne” (Doctrine and Covenants 132:29). To be clear, we do not and will never worship Abraham; we will only worship God. Yet, we can look to Abraham as an example of one who “overcame…by the blood of the Lamb” and received all that the Father hath (Revelation 12:11; Doctrine and Covenants 84:38). The fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ is thus to do as Abraham did, to become like God through the Atonement of his Son. Indeed, it is into the covenant that God made with Abraham that we must enter to gain eternal life as God has. That we may do this is my prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

A couple pictures

SGT Schmid, CH Hester, me (2011)

This was a visit to the "Hall of Heroes" atop a hill in the Kabul area.

me, SGT Thomas, Padre Simmonds (2012)

Padre Simmonds, a chaplain from Australia, came and preached during one of our Protestant services. SGT Thomas is working towards becoming a chaplain and has been a dear friend on this deployment.

The Fifth Commandment

The Fifth Commandment

            The fifth commandment that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai, declares: “Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee” (Ex 20:12). Though this seems to be a commandment directed primarily at children, it concerns the family, and therefore has relevance for parents as well.

            As parents, let us remember two things in pondering the fifth commandment:

1. No matter what our children do, never give up hope.
2. As God is our father, honoring him will bless our children. Trust that our obedience to God’s commandments will ultimately bless our children as promised in the commandment.

            By way of illustration, let us consider Lehi’s family in how they did or did not adhere to the Fifth Commandment. Laman and Lemuel did not keep it. Murmuring against one’s parents brings them no honor. What was Lehi’s response to their disobedient and rebellious spirit? (Keep in mind that their actions endangered family lives on multiple occasions, and during the ocean voyage to the Promised Land, Laman and Lemuel’s failure to keep this commandment carried with it potentially dire consequences for all.) Lehi responded thus:

And he did exhort them then with all the feeling of a tender parent, that they would hearken to his words, that perhaps the Lord would be merciful to them, and not cast them off; yea, my father did preach unto them. And after he had preached unto them, and also prophesied unto them of many things, he bade them to keep the commandments of the Lord; and he did cease speaking unto them (1 Nephi 8:37-38).

            Ponder this thought with me (concerning 1 Nephi 2): if Laman and Lemuel, whose seed would eventually destroy Nephi’s seed, wanted to stay in Jerusalem, why didn’t Lehi just let them stay? Wouldn’t that avoid a lot of war, death, and conflict? What of the peace and harmony in the family at the time of their departure from Jerusalem? What if Lehi had approached God in prayer for permission to leave behind his two eldest sons? They had their free agency, right?

            On the surface, leaving behind Laman and Lemuel might seem to make preemptive sense. In a few years they would be divided by war anyway; why not just make it official now? After we have finished our attempt to counsel the Lord in a way Lehi did not dare, we remember why this was not right. Angry citizens of Jerusalem sought Lehi’s life. Therefore, for operational security, Lehi’s sons could not remain behind, just as Zoram, the servant of Laban, could not remain behind once he had even remote knowledge of the intentions and whereabouts of Lehi’s family. Secrecy meant safety. Additionally, had they stayed behind, Laman and Lemuel would likely be subject to shame and ridicule because of who their father was; to now be separated from him might only compound the problem. They were near the age of marriage, but likely not past it, so they were not yet independent from their family. How could they seek marriages for themselves? This would go against the customs of the day, that parents arranged marriages for their children. Remember that they approached Ishmael and his family under the direction of their father, Lehi. They could not simply seek the daughters of Ishmael without his guidance. No, they could not stay in Jerusalem without their family.

            Setting aside the reasoning of men, let us consider the real reasons Lehi could not leave his sons in a city destined for captivity and destruction. First, he loved his sons. He knew of their rebellious tendencies, but did not give up hope. At the other end of Book of Mormon history, Mormon wrote to his son, Moroni, concerning the ministry among the unrepentant Nephites. Though his own people would not listen and were on the eve of destruction, Mormon would not abdicate his divine responsibility to call them to repentance.

And now, my beloved son, notwithstanding their hardness, let us labor diligently; for if we should cease to labor, we should be brought under condemnation; for we have  a labor to perform whilst in this tabernacle of clay, that we may conquer the enemy of all righteousness, and rest our souls in the kingdom of God (Mormon 9:6).

If there was ever a time where missionary work seemed futile, it would be during the last days of the Nephites. In the movie, Return of the King, King Théoden despaired as it seemed his people would be overrun by the forces of evil: “what can men do against such reckless hate?” (J.R.R. Tolkien). Yet, Aragorn, king in embryo, would not give way to hopelessness. Staring death in the face, he rallied the king: “ride out with me!” If they were to perish, it would not be in abdication of their duty, but in devotion to it. No blow struck against evil is wasted. Mormon knew this, and he needed to remain in this vigilant spirit to strengthen his son, Moroni, who would bear the heavy responsibility for finishing and hiding the sacred records in the earth. He wrote several epistles to his son to this end.

            Giving in to hopelessness sets in motion a domino effect. What if Mormon had given in? “Why should I declare the word of God if no one will listen? If we who are the primary record keepers are to perish, why am I bothering with this cumbersome set of metal plates? The Lamanites will eventually find them anyway and just melt them down. Carrying them is just slowing me down. God knows my heart, and that what I do will not change the current situation. Is not all this just a waste of time? All is lost.” The prayers of generations of prophets in the western hemisphere rested squarely on his shoulders. Giving up would have run counter to all thir petitions to God.

            Let us give thanks that Mormon did not lose hope. He trusted in God and his eternal purposes. Were there among the Nephite armies, young warriors whose parents had set them against the things of God? Though they would soon perish in battle, would Mormon’s words soften their hearts in preparation for hearing the Gospel of Christ in the spirit world? Did not Christ break the bands of death so that it was merely a passing and no longer an obstacle? Alma tells us that “all is as one day with God, and time only is measured unto men” (Alma 40:8). Any blow for good lessens the power of Satan on this earth and in the life to come, no matter how hopeless the current situation seems. Alma records of Captain Moroni that, “If all men had been, and were, and ever would be, like unto Moroni, behold, the very powers of hell would have been shaken forever; yea, the devil would never have power over the hearts of the children of men” (Alma 48:17). Our righteous acts have far-reaching, eternal consequences. Through the merciful Spirit of God, our vision can be extended just enough to give us courage to do our duty in the midst of seemingly hopeless situations.

            Lehi did not despair; he took his whole family, wayward sons and all, into the wilderness. He loved his sons and could therefore not give up hope. Even after his vision of the Tree of Life, where he witnessed Laman and Lemuel’s refusal to partake of the love of God, Lehi did not give up. He loved his sons.

            Because Lehi truly loved Laman and Lemuel, he was obedient unto the commandment of the Lord. Despite their murmuring, he did not give in to their desires to stay in Jerusalem against the commandment of God. He did not honor his sons more than he honored his Father in Heaven. Think back to Eli, the priest in the Old Testament. He was a good man, a godly man who served faithfully in the house of the Lord. He helped to mentor young Samuel, who would later become prophet in Israel. Yet, as faithful as Eli was, he fell short in his parental responsibilities. His two sons, Hophni and Phineas, who were also priests in the Tabernacle, were serving unworthily (1 Sam 2:12-17, 22, KJV). They had selfishly perverted the sacrifices people brought to the Tabernacle. They also “slept with the women who served at the entrance” to the Tabernacle (1 Sam 2:22, NIV).  The seriousness of their transgressions had far-reaching consequences for Israel. Because of their wickedness, people did not want to come to worship at the Tabernacle.

            After hearing of his sons’ iniquities from other people, Eli reproved his sons, but did not do enough to check them in their evil ways (1 Sam 2:23-25). He honored his sons more than God. Why had he allowed their sins to go on for so long? Scripture records that he did nothing about it until he heard about their deeds from “all the people” (1 Sam 2:23). Why was Eli so slow to discipline his sons? Did he fear their reaction to his rebuke more than God? Because of his neglect in disciplining his sons, he lost blessings, and his short-sightedness brought long-term consequences. A man of God prophesied concerning his posterity: “all the increase of thine house shall die in the flower of their age.”

            Compare this curse to the final blessing Lehi gave Laman and Lemuel. Despite their disobedience, he declared, “because of my blessing the Lord God will not suffer that ye shall perish; wherefore, he will be merciful unto you and unto your seed forever” (1 Nephi 4:7). What a contrast! What was the difference between Lehi’s family and Eli’s family? Both had sons who were rebellious, and both reproved their sons. A closer look reveals that Lehi reproved his sons as soon as they started murmuring (1 Nephi 2:11-12); he did not wait to correct them until they had committed heinous sins. He admonished Laman to “run into the fountain of all righteousness” and Lemuel to “be “firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord!” (1 Nephi 2:8-9). On the other hand, Eli waited until his sons’ untoward reputation had spread through all Israel, adversely affecting the worship of the people. By then it was too late and Eli’s house would be cut off.

            Imagine if Lehi had given in to Laman and Lemuel’s wishes. Think about Lehi’s potential rationalizations concerning his sons: “Leaving home would upset them and God would not want them to be upset, right? My sons are not ready to leave yet; we will just leave a little later. It is not as bad here in Jerusalem as I thought; maybe we should stay and help turn things around. After all, I shouldn’t judge these people; I should do what I can to help them.” Any one of the above rationalizations would have spelled doom for Lehi and his family. Each of the above lacks the key ingredient of simple, trusting obedience. Yet, Lehi showed us that anything short of exact obedience is not obedience.

            Lehi trusted God and was obedient, and therefore helped preserve God’s blessings for Laman and Lemuel by bringing them to the land of Promise, (kicking and screaming). Even though they did not honor their father and mother, their posterity were ultimately blessed because of Lehi’s obedience to God’s command, which was to take himself and “his family and depart into the wilderness,” (1 Nephi 2:2-3). Lehi honored his Father in Heaven.

            With the benefit of hindsight we realize that the seed of Laman and Lemuel were destined to be a scourge to the seed of Nephi in the Promised Land. This was similar to the neighboring tribes fighting with Israel to stir them up in remembrance of the Lord their God. Additionally, as promised by Lehi, Laman and Lemuel’s posterity would be blessed despite the their sins. Would these blessings take a while to manifest in earthly time? Certainly. Yet, millennia later, the Lamanites in South and Central America are “blossom[ing] as the rose” (Doctrine and Covenants 49:24).

            Lehi could not leave his sons, Laman and Lemuel behind. They were to remain together with their family in honoring and keeping the Fifth Commandment, and accomplishing the purposes of the Lord. In the spirit of Elijah, let us observe the Fifth Commandment so that we may continue assisting the work to forge an unbroken chain of God’s children back to him. Let us do so, in choosing blessings over cursings for ourselves and countless generations to come, I pray, in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.