Not Ancestor Worship -- But Real-time Partnership / Lloyd

Judy and I have 39 grandchildren facing puberty, dating, courtship and marriage. We thought 6 daughters and 3 sons passing that way was extraordinary, but 39 - Wow!

When we were growing up, our parents counselled us about appropriate behavior in boy-girl dating. And we followed suit with our children.

Who would have guessed that our children would have to counsel their children about same-sex relationships as well as boy-girl chastity.

Clearly as grandparents Judy and I are seeking the blessings of God in keeping our grandchildren safe in their forward progress towards establishing their own families.  

Today at Church the Priesthood discussed the special blessings available to all those who search out the records of their ancestors.  When we also facilitate having their temple ordinances completed, they are then sealed and preserved as family for eternity. In class we watched videos and discussed the more recent emphasis on families taking advantage of computer technology within their own homes, and especially involving our tech savvy youth, in family history work.

I recall  President A. Theodore Tuttle enumerating the great promises for those engaged in family history research. (April 1980, Eternal Links that Bind)

All who diligently search realize that help comes—often from the other side of the veil. You see, they are organized and working there at least as well as we are here!

He quoted Elder Melvin J. Ballard,

The spirit and influence of your dead will guide those who are interested in finding those records. If there is anywhere on the earth anything concerning them, you will find it

and Elder John Widtsoe,  

I have the feeling … that those who give themselves with all their might and main to this work receive help from the other side, and not merely in gathering genealogies. Whoever seeks to help those on the other side receives help in return in all the affairs of life.

We are not so interested in policing internet use as we are in setting our grandchildren on fire in the enterprise of getting acquainted with their forbearers, helping to provide eternal sealing ordinances, and placing this rising generation in a position of “receiving help in all the affairs of life from those on the other side of the veil.”

One grandson at dinner said he’d like to go back in time to meet his many generations of grandparents. It seemed appropriate to assure him that he didn’t have to go back in time, simply peer through the veil and see them as they are now -- fully aware of him and doing all they are permitted in his behalf.

Elder Dallin H. Oaks commented:

When I was young, I thought . . . personal appearances were the only meaning of the ministering of angels. As a young holder of the Aaronic Priesthood, I did not think I would see an angel, and I wondered what such appearances had to do with the Aaronic Priesthood.

But the ministering of angels can also be unseen. Angelic messages can be delivered by a voice or merely by thoughts or feelings communicated to the mind. President John Taylor described “the action of the angels, or messengers of God, upon our minds, so that the heart can conceive … revelations from the eternal world.” (October 1998, “The Aaronic Priesthood and Sacrament”)

The eternal pattern of families is prescribed by God and clearly delineated in the The Family: A Proclamation to the World. By engaging in Family History Work today, our children will have personal knowledge of this pattern sealed in their minds and on their hearts. This knowledge will come through personal spiritual experience.

This is not ancestor worship. This is a real-time partnership through the veil with those who came before us in our family tree. They came at a time when the saving ordinances of the gospel weren’t universally available. We covenanted to provide these ordinances vicariously through family history and temple work, even though in our time we must endure perilous evil.

In the midst of so much disinformation, distracting influences and negative societal pressures, our children and grandchildren must draw upon resources from both sides of the veil. These strengthening resources may make all the difference in helping them successfully navigate puberty, dating, courtship and marriage.

Parental Affection Must Transcend Institutional Concerns / Lloyd

Recently a friend asked if a Facebook posting might not be part of a preface to an Abbott Family Chronicle. It wasn’t and I referred him to She Says, He Says to find our thoughts and experiences organized by subject matter. A quick review of our blog, however,  revealed a hodgepodge organized only by posting date.

To rectify the tangle I gave each post a subject label and built a first cut index that readers can see as a pop-up on the right edge of the screen.  In that process I took time to read, scan and cull the 334 posts that started in Oct 2008 when we began our blog, and to a degree I relived our documented challenges and concerns.

observations

As a result of that review and reliving I have several observations and three questions.

1. Our struggle with California Proposition 8 for me converted a lifetime of close interrelations with gays and lesbians to an uncomfortable institutional confrontation between Mormons and the LGBT community.
2. As I worked through my theological framework since 2008 I've became more convinced than ever that a samesex relationship is absolutely at odds with an eternal family pattern, wherein Heavenly Parents (a male and a female) conceive us spiritually and earthly parents provide mortal, physical bodies for our spirits.
3. That physical chain began on earth with the conception of our first parents Adam & Eve. They were born to immortal parents and raised in a family setting until they were joined in marriage and given the opportunity to transgress God’s commandment. Through transgression, Adam & Eve gained the ability to conceive children of their own within a mortal setting.
4. So much more than resurrection and immortality, eternal life is the state of married men and women with immortal, physical bodies. With these immortal, physical bodies husbands and wives continue the conception of spiritual beings within a family setting. Immortal parents then provide those children a mortal experience to acquire physical bodies of their own and eventually live in an expanding eternal family.
5. Consistent with this theological understanding, I find the fundamental gay and lesbian variance to this eternal pattern truly overwhelming.
6. And I’m amazed at the many gay and lesbian children I’ve encountered in the Mormon community.
7. I’ve been even more amazed and dismayed at the knee jerk shunning and ostracizing of these gay and lesbian children born in the covenant within our religious community that throws them into the hungry and waiting arms of the most tragic and harmful elements of society.

questions

Now the questions:  

1. Why is this great Mormon Community finding it so difficult to put aside the institutional concerns and encircle our gay and lesbian members, especially our own children, in an interpersonal embrace that heals wounds and provides these family members optimum mortal development?
2. Is our theology so narrow that we can’t recognize the value and potential for contribution of family members whether or not they are interested in or bound toward eternal family life?
3. Can we admit to no common ground within a current family relationship whether or not a family member is in full Church fellowship?

perspective

I have been working with men and women in violation of the doctrine and principles that lead to eternal life since my mission in 1964. Actually, since I began home teaching with my father when I was a teacher and a priest. He showed me it was possible to engage members, and men and women generally, in interpersonal relationships of respect and service. He showed me it wasn’t my place to be judgemental or punitive.  He was absolutely realistic of what was, but he never let that get in his way of extending a caring outreach. And he accepted rejection without rancor.

Every day I work professionally in a maximum security setting to provide wellness and recovery support to incarcerated men who have broken every commandment. And with the fewest possible exceptions, mostly among the seriously mentally ill who are yet to stabilize on medications,  we have found common ground for safe, respectful, and productive relationships.

I’m not so naive to ignore the importance to safety of the highly structured security measures in place. However, I’m still surprised at the caring stability that can be achieved even with the men who were most dangerous and destructive when they lived outside of security. And actually, the goal and reality is that the majority of these men will eventually be released to the community.

Therefore, I really don’t understand our own people that seem so ready to jettison their own children who are caught in such an anomalous disconnect with eternity. How can we cut them off, those little children we ourselves conceived and bore with such hope and love, waiting for the institution to get things sorted out?

Safety for Our Children in this Society / Lloyd

safety in a society unraveling

I began working with marginal groups in the early 70’s as a New York City methadone maintenance counselor -- and later during the 90’s in Maryland as an out-patient mental health worker and as a volunteer in state prison facilitating non-violence groups.

Currently I work in California as a licensed Senior Psychiatric Technician in a maximum security, state psychiatric hospital, and for a 5-year period I volunteered in state prison facilitating a pre-release group for inmates incarcerated for sexual offenses.

I’ve witnessed that those who violate fundamental moral and ethical principles defined within the Ten Commandments disproportionately find themselves working through episodes of intense unrest, contention, and anger.  Also, defeat, hopelessness, and despair. This observation is dramatic among the marginal groups but also holds within the general population.

A society unraveling morally demonstrates many unhealthy, emotional behaviors. We have all witnessed over-the-top rage and intense ridicule, sometimes with vengeful retaliation, whenever religious leaders publicly encourage adherence to the Ten Commandments and scriptural values. We ask ourselves, where is there safety in such a society, and how do we prepare our children and grandchildren?

principles of safety for our children & grandchildren

I believe we need to teach our children to fear God more than man and what society can do to us. They must experience early in life that their truest validation comes from God himself and that personal revelation from God is very real and open to them.

I believe it is essential that as parents we not only model in plain sight what we teach as our children walk with us, but also that we include them when we have course corrections to make in our own lives. Children need to behold the tenderness of a merciful God in action especially during the repentance process.

I believe that parents and others who honor their faith provide a natural, positive contrast in society when they live fundamental moral and ethical principles.

One of the most tragic lessons I learned as a drug addiction counselor in New York City was the destruction of hope and personal value among the children of hypocritical adults who publicly espoused one set of values and secretly lived -- but never secret enough to hide from their children -- the opposite lifestyle.

And most important perhaps for the blessing of those around us, I believe we need to teach our children to acknowledge virtue in others whatever their belief system and to thoughtfully validate that goodness. I am especially encouraged that our grandchildren are wonderfully inclusive at school.

not an academic exercise

This year Judy & I will have in our immediate family 20 adults and 40 grandchildren. The principles above have come hard learned and daily refined.

Who Told Thee Thou Wast Naked? / Lloyd

Expelled for Sexual Attraction -- Who told thee thou wast naked?

It was 1962, the year depicted in the movie American Graffiti, and Judy’s Fall semester at BYU. She lived in the dorms with 3 roommates and recalls that one of them was somewhat unkempt, without good hygiene, and for the most part disorganized with few practical survival skills (activities of daily living) or social skills. One day after class this roommate came in crying and said she’d been told she had to leave because essentially she didn’t meet the Y’s standards for sexual orientation.

That was numbing, but then Judy looked at the display of small porcelain animals arranged on her roommate’s dresser. Judy’s first thought was that more than anything this was a young woman, much like herself, who wanted to fit in and move forward in life. Who knew what experiences she’d had to deal with up to that point, and this was her opportunity. But no more. And with that realization, Judy began to sob.

To this day Judy has difficulty talking about this experience, and from time to time wonders aloud what became of her expelled roommate. Her roommate had come to BYU seeking refuge and an opportunity to make sense of a young lifetime of neglect -- certainly, perhaps of abuse. Given her roommate’s reclusiveness we have wondered how any official made this determination unless the roommate herself discussed her concerns. Instead of Christian succor she had been cast out with a bell warning others to stay clear -- unclean, unclean.

I was thinking of Judy’s roommate when I recently attempted to illustrate the difference in perspective our LGBT children might have -- contrasted with their clueless and oh so righteous straight brothers and sisters.

LDS straights armed with theological assurances and without SSA feelings can be so secure that sexual orientation, or same sex attraction, is an individual choice.

I work in a psychiatric hospital and see everyday trained & experienced colleagues become annoyed with court-ordered, hospitalized psychiatric patients when they fail to act “right.”

So easy to forget that we all structure everyday life from where we stand, from what we experience -- and SSA/non-SSA can provide dramatic and distinctive personal perspectives. Too bad we don’t as yet interface meaningfully with the unclean.

Discussing Sexuality With Our Children / Lloyd

Boyd K. Packer delivered two classic speeches that clearly defined our God-given power of procreation with its trials and tests, its sorrows and joys, and God's rules of engagement. They are: “Why Stay Morally Clean,” New Era, Jul 1972; and "Ye Are the Temple of God," Ensign, Nov 2000. The principles and doctrines found in these speeches together with the teachings of the Temple Endowment make clear the framework in which we discussed sexuality with our children. Here is the first speech, "Why Stay Morally Clean," slightly modified and with subheadings added.

There are many young people in our audience today. It is to them, particularly to the teenagers, that I speak. The subject should be of great interest to you: Why stay morally clean. . .

before our mortal birth

In the beginning, prior to your mortal birth, you lived with our Heavenly Father. He is real. He actually lives. There are those living upon the earth who bear witness of his existence. . . . He lives, and I bear testimony of it.

He knew you there. Because he loved you, he was anxious for your happiness and for your eternal growth. He wanted you to be able to choose freely and to grow through the power of correct choice, so that you may become much as he is. To achieve this, it was necessary for us to leave his presence. Something like going away to school. A plan was presented, and each agreed to leave the presence of our Heavenly Father to experience life in mortality.

a mortal body with trials and tests

Two great things were in store for us as we came into this world. One, we would receive a mortal body, created in the image of God. Through it, by proper control, we might achieve eternal life and happiness. Two, we would be tried and tested in such a way that we could grow in strength and in spiritual power.

Now this first purpose is wonderfully important, for this body given us will be resurrected and will serve us through the eternities.

Under the accepted plan, Adam and Eve were sent to the earth as our first parents. They could prepare physical bodies for the first spirits to be introduced into this life.

the power of procreation, family, and happiness in mortality

There was provided in our bodies—and this is sacred—a power of creation, a light, so to speak, that has the power to kindle other lights. This gift was to be used only within the sacred bonds of marriage. Through the exercise of this power of creation, a mortal body may be conceived, a spirit enter into it, and a new soul born into this life.

This power is good. It can create and sustain family life, and it is in family life that we find the fountains of happiness. It is given to virtually every individual who is born into mortality. It is a sacred and significant power, and I repeat, my young friends, that this power is good.

You who are teenagers, like every other son and daughter of Adam and Eve, have this power within you.

The power of creation—or may we say procreation—is not just an incidental part of the plan: it is essential to it. Without it the plan could not proceed. The misuse of it may disrupt the plan.

Much of the happiness that may come to you in this life will depend on how you use this sacred power of creation. The fact that you young men can become fathers and that you young women can become mothers is of utmost importance to you.

As this power develops within you, it will prompt you in the search for a companion and empower you to love and to hold him.

I repeat, this power to act in the creation of life is sacred. You can some day have a family of your own. Through the exercise of this power you can invite children to live with you—little boys and little girls who will be your very own—created, in a way, in your own image. You can establish a home, a dominion of power and influence and opportunity. This carries with it great responsibility.

why the creative power within us must be strong and constant

This creative power carries with it strong desires and urges. You have felt them already in the changing of your attitudes and your interests. . .

It was necessary that this power of creation have at least two dimensions: one, it must be strong; and two, it must be more or less constant.

This power must be strong, for most men by nature seek adventure. Except for the compelling persuasion of these feelings, men would be reluctant to accept the responsibility of sustaining a home and a family. This power must be constant, too, for it becomes a binding tie in family life.

You are old enough, I think, to look around you in the animal kingdom. You soon realize that where this power of creation is a fleeting thing, where it expresses itself only in season, there is no family life.

It is through this power that life continues. A world full of trials and fears and disappointments can be changed into a kingdom of hope and joy and happiness. Each time a child is born, the world somehow is renewed in innocence.

procreation is the power of deity

Again I want to tell you young people that this power within you is good. It is a gift from God our Father. In the righteous exercise of it as in nothing else, we may come close to him.

We can have, in a small way, much that our Father in heaven has as he governs us, his children. No greater school or testing place can be imagined.

Is it any wonder, then, that in the Church marriage is so sacred and so important? Can you understand why your marriage, which releases these powers of creation for your use, should be the most carefully planned, the most solemnly considered step in your life? Ought we to consider it unusual that the Lord directed that temples be constructed for the purpose of performing marriage ceremonies?

Satan’s focus is to disrupt,

even destroy mortal and

eternal family life

Now there are other things that I will tell you as a warning. In the beginning there was one among us who rebelled at the plan of our Heavenly Father. He vowed to destroy and to disrupt the plan.

He was prevented from having a mortal body and was cast out—limited forever from establishing a kingdom of his own. He became satanically jealous. He knows that this power of creation is not just an incident to the plan, but a key to it.

He knows that if he can entice you to use this power prematurely, to use it too soon, or to misuse it in any way, you may well lose your opportunities for eternal progression.

He is an actual being from the unseen world. He has great power. He will use it to persuade you to transgress those laws set up to protect the sacred powers of creation.

In former times he was too cunning to confront one with an open invitation to be immoral. But rather, sneakingly and quietly he would tempt young and old alike to think loosely of these sacred powers of creation. To bring down to a vulgar or to a common level that which is sacred and beautiful.

previously Satan was subtle, 

today it is open warfare

His tactics have changed now. He describes it as only an appetite to be satisfied. He teaches that there are no attendant responsibilities to the use of this power. Pleasure, he will tell you, is its sole purpose.

His devilish invitations appear on billboards. They are coined into jokes and written into the lyrics of songs. They are acted out on television and at theaters. They will stare at you now from most magazines. There are magazines—you know the word, pornography—open, wicked persuasions to pervert and misuse this sacred power.

You grow up in a society where before you is the constant invitation to tamper with these sacred powers.

I want to counsel you and I want you to remember these words.

do not let anyone at all touch or handle your body, not anyone!

Do not let anyone at all touch or handle your body, not anyone! Those who tell you otherwise proselyte you to share their guilt. We teach you to maintain your innocence.

Turn away from any who would persuade you to experiment with these life-giving powers.

That such indulgence is widely accepted in society today is not enough!

For both parties to willingly consent to such indulgence is not enough!

To imagine that it is a normal expression of affection is not enough to make it right.

The only righteous use of this sacred power is within the covenant of marriage.

Never misuse these sacred powers.

crowning glory or misery & sorrow

And now, my young friends, I must tell you soberly and seriously that God has declared in unmistakable language that misery and sorrow will follow the violation of the laws of chastity. “… wickedness never was happiness.” (Alma 41:10.)

These laws were set up to guide all of his children in the use of this gift.

He does not have to be spiteful or vengeful in order that punishment will come from the breaking of the moral code. The laws are established of themselves.

Crowning glory awaits you if you live worthily. The loss of the crown may well be punishment enough. Often, very often, we are punished as much by our sins as we are for them.

for transgression: the cleansing power of Christ’s atonement

I am sure that within the sound of my voice there is more than one young person who already has fallen into transgression. Some of you young people, I am sure, almost innocent of any intent, but persuaded by the enticements and the temptations, already have misused this power.

Know then, my young friends, that there is a great cleansing power. And know that you can be clean.

If you are outside the Church, the covenant of baptism itself represents, among other things, a washing and a cleansing.

For those of you inside the Church there is a way, not entirely painless, but certainly possible. You can stand clean and spotless before Him. Guilt will be gone, and you can be at peace. Go to your bishop. He holds the key to this cleansing power.

family life & happiness

without bounds

Then one day you can know the full and righteous expression of these powers and the attendant happiness and joy in righteous family life. In due time, within the bonds of the marriage covenant, you can yield yourselves to those sacred expressions of love which have as their fulfillment the generation of life itself.

Someday you will hold a little boy or a little girl in your arms and know that two of you have acted in partnership with our Heavenly Father in the creation of life. Because the youngster belongs to you, you may then come to love someone more than you love yourself.

This experience can come, insofar as I know, only through having children of your own or perhaps through fostering children born of another and yet drawn close into family covenants. . .

Through this loving one more than you love yourself, you become truly Christian. Then you know, as few others know, what the word Father means when it is spoken of in the scriptures. You may then feel something of the love and concern that he has for us.

It should have great meaning that of all the titles of respect and honor and admiration that could be given him, God himself, he who is the highest of all, chose to be addressed simply as Father.

Protect and guard your gift. Your actual happiness is at stake. Eternal family life, now only in your anticipations and dreams, can be achieved because our Heavenly Father has bestowed this choicest gift of all upon you—this power of creation. It is the very key to happiness. Hold this gift as sacred and pure. Use it only as the Lord has directed.

My young friends, there is much happiness and joy to be found in this life. I can testify of that.

I picture you with a companion whom you love and who loves you. I picture you at the marriage altar, entering into covenants that are sacred. I picture you in a home where love has its fulfillment, and I picture you with little children about you and see your love growing with them.

I cannot frame this picture. I would not if I could, for it has no bounds. Your happiness will have no ends if you obey his laws.

I pray God’s blessings upon you, our youth. May our Heavenly Father watch over you and sustain you, that in the expression of this sacred gift you may draw close to him. He lives. He is our Father. Of this I bear witness in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

My Personal Views on Homosexuality / Lloyd

WHEN I sat down to clarify my personal views on homosexuality for people who may read this blog, I discovered it was a far more complicated task than I had supposed. 

To preface these remarks let me say that Proposition 8 has been wrenching for me and my friends and colleagues who are gays and lesbians.The campaign has brought into the public arena private behaviors that I accepted because they were my friends. But now our relationships are at risk because they require a statement of solidarity with self destructive behaviors that I cannot support for society in general.

1. In my youth detailed talk about human intimacy was limited to heterosexual behaviors. During junior high school, if you wore green on Thursdays that meant you were queer and you got pantsed (beltless Levis pulled down around your knees), your books hit out of your hands and scattered all over, hit, or just called queer. My mother told me that queers were men who liked men, and that was the extent of it. For sure I avoided wearing green, but as I look back on the situation I can only imagine the terror felt by fellow students who may have had same-sex attractions or who demonstrated any degree of effeminate behavior and would have been bullied.  The subject didn’t resurface until college, when I read about a gay love affair in Another Country, a novel written by James Baldwin. That was the extent to what I knew about homosexuality.

2. In the early 70’s I worked as an addiction counselor at a New York City Methadone Maintenance Clinic and served gay men, lesbians, and transvestites. Some of my coworkers revealed they were actively in homosexual relationships. During the year and a half at the clinic my main concern was helping my gay clients stay alive or out of trouble with the law as they worked through one turbulent love affair after another. After 6 months the clinical supervisor said he was transferring additional gays to my caseload because I cared about them as people, whereas other staff members were less tolerant or refused altogether.

3. About this time at Church my Bishop assigned me to home teach a gay couple. He said that they were getting older and were at greater hazard for risky behaviors during their cruising. He said that my job was to keep them alive, that he would deal with the worthiness aspects of their Church membership. It was a match made in Heaven. We became good friends, and the helping went both ways. They really watched after our new little family. I wrecked their car coming from visiting Judy at the maternity ward, and they just shrugged it off with, “That’s what insurance is for.” They taught me a lot about being a friend.

4. I was the Plans, Ops, and Training Officer at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, DC when the AIDS epidemic hit. I overheard two very senior Army officers say, “Now we’ll get the buggers out of the military once and for all—they’ll just all die of this homosexual epidemic.” I couldn’t believe anyone would feel that way, let alone say it out loud. Ironically, it was the nearby Armed Forces Institute of Pathology that confirmed the relationship between HIV, T-Cells and so many young gay men dying. This discovery would lead to medical research and treatment of AIDS.

5. My main contact with homosexuals has been as coworkers and clients in the helping professions. Oddly enough, it was a closeted gay man that hired me to work for the Boy Scouts of America as a District Executive. Within a month of my hire, he publicly announced his homosexuality and then sued the BSA when they put him on administrative leave with pay. They settled out of court.

6. The U.S. Supreme Court had just ruled that the BSA is a private organization and as such could set its own moral code, that forcing BSA to accept gays would violate its constitutional right to freedom of association. In reaction to that ruling three local organizations teamed up to “marginalize the Boy Scouts of America in our Society, beginning with the Central Coast of California:” The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), National Organization of Women (NOW), and the Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD). These organizations waged war against the Boy Scouts of America:

• a) they publicly denigrated Scouting in the media,
• b) lobbied to legally cut off all governmental recognition and contacts with Scouting, including state, county, city organizations and agencies, and local school systems, and
• 3) discouraged churches, fraternal and service organizations from sponsoring Scouting.

It was a bitter campaign full of ferocity and invective.

7. As a result of this vicious bullying by the bullied I tried to understand what was generating such negative energy against the Boy Scouts. So I renewed a more than 20-year-old acquaintance with A. Dean Byrd, currently president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH), and also with Allen E. Bergin, who I first met when he taught at Columbia University Teachers College in New York City before he joined the faculty of Brigham Young University in 1972.

8. In reviewing the scientific literature that these professors provided or referenced, I began to appreciate the terrible, almost driven need for many members of the homosexual community to perceive that their sexual and relational behavior be considered totally normal and accepted. It is more than feeling safe from assault. I recall reading reports that indicated the incidence of suicide among gays and lesbians in European countries, where they enjoy general acceptance, was about as high as in the States. It may be that for many homosexuality is in itself unstable and unsafe and that no level of public acceptance will make it physically or emotionally more stable and safer.

IN SUMMARY, over my lifetime and even now I have enjoyed satisfying friendships and collegial relationships with men and women who have revealed to me that they are practicing homosexuals. I have mourned with them as they worked through terribly difficult relationships incident to their homosexuality. I have worked to help gay and lesbian clients be safe from their self-destructive behaviors. And I hope to continue these personal relationships and service. But this may be more and more challenging if our society continues on its current course to generally bully, politicize, officially normalize, and even promote, personal sexual and relational behaviors that can be so terribly self destructive and harmful to those involved in such relationships, especially for any dependent children.