Doctrinal Essays

I believe in the importance of church activity, and have for the most part attended my meetings faithfully for the majority of my life. Having said that, I confess that while my mind understands the importance and necessity of church and temple attendance, my heart has not always been with my body as I have sat through those meetings. I would even say that nine times out of ten I leave the church and temple place empty handed. To be clear, I do not believe this weakness of mine has anything to do with a failure to understand the doctrines of the gospel. Rather, I think it has more to do with the way I hold those doctrines in my sometimes empty heart. This emptiness has caused me deep feelings of regret and guilt. When I hear others talk of their rewarding, spiritual, and uplifting experiences from church and temple worship, I feel even guiltier. I feel glad for those people and their experiences, but frankly I can't always relate. But I'm trying to. In 1997 I was inspi...

All too often science and faith have a perceived relationship much like two members of a failing marriage whose differences just can't be reconciled. A number of papers have been written on this perceived rift between science and religion, and is a topic that people with interests in both must confront sooner or later. This paper presents my own discoveries in the establishment of a healthy science and faith relationship. Since I was a kid, I have loved science, in all its flavors. The thought of Archaeologists with their brushes and hammers, uncovering history and assembling stories from their discoveries is exhilarating. I respect the Physicist's who are able to determine astronomical distances of objects in space, and their chemical compositions, all from our own earth through mathematics and observation. The classifications and understanding we have of anatomy and physiology, geology, you name it - it's all awesome. Then to consider that all we know today of science...

For many years I've felt an urge, a longing to contribute something to this world. A contribution that would affect the orbit of the earth, or change the way mankind thinks, behaves, or functions. Something like Edison's light bulb, or Einsteins's theories on relativity. Four years ago it seemed the way to make this contribution was through further education. Scientific research is both exciting and rewarding, and presents a great opportunity to make humanitarian contributions. This course has lead me to providing scholarly research for NASA related to fire suppression and mitigation, which might be considered a humanitarian contribution, or the giving back to society hope that I've wanted for many years. Earlier today I was sitting in a room at Idaho State University in Pocatello among scientists and NASA scholars discussing these issues, and I felt strangely unsatisfied. This unsatisfactory feeling was irksome to me and I didn't know what to make of it. Thre...

Have you ever heard something, like a phrase, quote, scripture, song, or poem, and instantly knew it was absolutely and unquestionably true? It is more than just a thought, its a thought with a thousand pounds of gentle force, assurance, and confirmation. It is a feeling that always accompanies true doctrine to the earnest seeker of truth, but usually only comes when the ears it falls upon are ready and sincere. It is a feeling I have had throughout my life without realizing it, and then a few years ago I looked back and realized how many times that feeling had assisted my life, but I was often insensitive to it. In the summer of 2013, I was lead to a book by James Allen called "As a Man Thinketh". As I listened to the book in my car, I recall often having moments when my jaw literally dropped and that solid feeling of undeniable and eternally true feeling came. Part of my awe was from the facts that Jam es Allen lived in the early part of the 19th century, on another con...

Doctrine. It's not exactly a word that catches most people's attention. Its probably never been a viral topic on YouTube, Facebook, or any other social media outlet - it's not likely ever to be so. That's okay with me, most things that catch most people's attention don't appeal to me anyway. But it's an important subject. It's one thing that has true potential for bringing about real and lasting change in our lives. I can't think of anything more deserving of the attention of all of God's children, regardless of race or religion. When I think of true doctrine, I can't help but think of food analogies for its importance. There are all kinds of food, but only one kind of nutrition. We can eat garbage and call it food - and truthfully, garbage in the form of most of the things people eat can keep us alive, but that doesn't mean it's nutritious. When nutritionists get right down to the heart of nutrition they are talking about vita...

In my profession as a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) scientist, much of my time is spent in the observation of locations and events, and their spatial relationships, trends, and patterns. Understanding these conditions always paints a clearer picture and leads to truer understanding of the big picture. This 'nerdy' type of analysis has extended into my personal spiritual life. I have observed the inevitable trend of spiritual location and movement in my own life, and in the spiritual lives of others. Understanding these patterns, relationships, and more importantly, the causes of spiritual movement can aid in the goal of a spiritually constant life, and ultimate confident reunion with God. Position is an intrinsic component of movement. Two positions become manifest when movement occurs; the position before, and the position following the movement. The second position is always higher or lower, ahead or behind, or better or worse than the first position - never the...

There is a noteworthy scriptural concept related to movement, which involves no movement at all. It is the exact opposite of movement. Where one has no spiritual movement, one is still, or in other scriptural synonyms, set, fixed, unwavering, firm, steadfast, and immovable . The last three words appear often together and have become to me the triad of spiritual steadiness. Lehi understood the power of steadiness and wanted it for his disobedient spiritually wavering son Lemuel. He expressed his desire in these words: "O that thou mightest be like unto this valley, firm and steadfast, and immovable in keeping the commandments of the Lord!" (See 1 Ne. 2:10) [1] . Lehi was apparently moved by the silent and steady power of the Valley of Lemuel, and saw it as a fitting spiritual analogy for his spiritually wavering son. When my wife and I were first married, we went on the famous Table Rock hike in the Grand Teton mountain range. A deep feeling of reverence and awe overt...

The phrase 'spiritual movement' includes a number of components that are dynamically related. Movement can occur by choice, or involuntarily. It can transpire in positive and uplifting directions or in negative and spiritually diminishing ways. And the source of the moving power can be manifest outwardly or inwardly. Alma's mission to reclaim the apostate Zoramites illustrates many of these movements and their relationships. When preaching among the Zoramites, Alma discovered the poor and cast out condition among a certain group of the Zoramites, who had experienced the involuntary spiritual movement. He described their movement as those who were "brought to a lowliness of heart" (Alma 32:12), and also used the term compelled. He then said: "And now, as I said unto you, that because ye were compelled to be humble ye were blessed, do ye not suppose that they are more blessed who truly humble themselves because of the word?" (Alma 32:14). "Yea,...