{"id":103275,"date":"2023-12-30T15:35:40","date_gmt":"2023-12-30T22:35:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/?p=103275"},"modified":"2023-12-30T15:35:40","modified_gmt":"2023-12-30T22:35:40","slug":"god-knows-and-speaks-to-individuals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/danpeterson\/2023\/12\/god-knows-and-speaks-to-individuals.html","title":{"rendered":"God knows and speaks to individuals"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>
\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/a>
Moroni buries the plates of the Book of Mormon in a hill near modern-day Palmyra, New York
(Tom Lovell, LDS.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
I would like to commend two recent blog entries by the redoubtable Jeff Lindsay<\/a> to your attention.\u00a0 It seems particularly fitting to do so as we\u2019re about to enter a new year for the \u201cCome, Follow Me\u201d curriculum of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>, a curriculum that will be focused on the Book of Mormon:<\/p>\n
\u201cNephi\u2019s Three-day Journey into the Wilderness: The Natural vs. the Naturalistic Reading\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
\u201cThe Glue of Forgiveness and the Anti-Nephi-Lehies (the People of Ammon)\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
<\/a>
Angelic heralds, as depicted in the long-running annual but now terminated Hill Cumorah Pageant near Palmyra, New York
(Wikimedia Commons public domain)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
A few days before Christmas, somebody in Modesto, California \u2014 I don\u2019t know who it was \u2014 sent me a copy of a small and very accessible book that I have been reading since its arrival:\u00a0 Hadley Vlahos, The In-Between: Unforgettable Encounters During Life\u2019s Final Moments<\/em> (New York: Ballantine Books, 2023).\u00a0 Ms. Vlahos is a still-young R.N., born and raised in Florida (I think) and still based there, and specifically a hospice nurse who attends to people who are fatally ill and in the last stages of their lives.\u00a0 Despite what the title might seem to suggest, it isn\u2019t primarily about encounters with the spirit world, although she relates a few brief experiences that certainly seem to suggest such encounters.\u00a0 And, although it\u2019s chiefly focused on her patients, it\u2019s also quietly autobiographical, telling about her somewhat unlikely path to a rather unusual career that she now regards as very much her calling.<\/p>\n
Although she had attended church faithfully in her earlier life, Hadley had pretty much lost her faith and her interest in religion by the time she went off to college.\u00a0 Coming home after her freshman year, she found that she was pregnant.\u00a0 She was devastated.\u00a0 She had expected to fall in love with somebody in college, graduate, get married, have a couple of children, and eventually settle down in a nice little house near the beach with a white picket fence.\u00a0 She had intended to become a writer.<\/p>\n
Now, she thought, she would get an abortion.\u00a0 Nobody really needed to know and, that way, she might still be able to have the life of her dreams.<\/p>\n
The next morning was Sunday and, rather on a whim and not wanting to be alone with her dismal thoughts, she asked her recently-divorced mother if she could tag along with her to church.\u00a0 It was a church that Hadley had never attended.<\/p>\n
"
We found a seat near the back and sang along to the hymns.\u00a0 I was distracted, bored, and wondered why I had come.<\/p>\n
Finally the priest, Father Tom, an older man wearing silky robes, raised his hands to the sky, holding a Bible in one hand and a notebook in the other.\u00a0 After a few moments, he placed both down on the podium in front of him.<\/p>\n
He stared down at the open books in complete silence, then finally closed the notebook and began speaking.\u00a0 \u201cI had a sermon planned for today.\u00a0 I spent an entire day writing it, but God is telling me I have someone here to speak to.\u201d<\/p>\n
I rolled my eyes, thinking this was just a cheap way to keep people\u2019s attention.<\/p>\n
\u201cGod\u2019s plan can sometimes feel confusing,\u201d he began.\u00a0 \u201cMany times we might find ourselves saying, Why me, God?<\/em>\u00a0 Or, Why couldn\u2019t you have given me their life instead?\u00a0 It looks so much easier.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n
Well, that does apply to me,<\/em> I thought, but I\u2019m sure it applies to half the people in this room as well.<\/em><\/p>\n
\u201cOn my way inside, I was stopped by a couple with two children,\u201d he continued.\u00a0 \u201cThey asked me to take their picture, and as I was taking it I was spoken to.\u00a0 Someone in here yearns for this couple\u2019s life.\u00a0 They want the white picket fence \u2014 to graduate college and get married, have two kids, and live happily ever after.\u00a0 But that\u2019s not what God needs them for.\u201d<\/p>\n
I watched my mom out of the corner of my eye as he spoke, but she never took her eyes off of Father Tom.\u00a0 I began picking at my chipped fingernail polish.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019re going to have to give up your ideal life in order to lives the life planned for you.\u00a0 You\u2019re going to have to give up your sorority, your college life, and this path you\u2019re currently on.\u201d<\/p>\n
I blatantly looked at my mom this time, only to see that her mouth was hanging open in shock.\u00a0 I was shocked, too, because now this was very specific to my situation.\u00a0 But as I glanced around the room, I saw many girls my age.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou need to have this baby,\u201d he continued.\u00a0 All right, what is going on?!<\/em> I wondered.\u00a0 This was way too close to home.\u00a0 I glared at my mom, thinking she had somehow orchestrated this, but she swears to this day that she never said a word to anyone in the church and did not have a clue that I would come with her that morning.<\/p>\n
\u201cLife is not going to be easy at first, but this is the life planned for you and it will be worth it,\u201d Father Tom finished.<\/p>\n
As my mom and I walked out of the church, I felt more confused than ever.\u00a0 We rode home in silence, and I spent every waking moment between then and Monday agonizing over my choice.<\/p>\n
On Monday morning, I held the phone number of the abortion clinic in my hands, but I couldn\u2019t bring myself to call.\u00a0 What if Father Tom was right?\u00a0 What if this was the path for me?\u00a0 I knew life wouldn\u2019t be easy if I kept the baby \u2014 and it certainly wouldn\u2019t be the life I had imagined.<\/p>\n
The days turned into weeks, and I never called the clinic.\u00a0 My mom and I didn\u2019t talk about it until one day when she told me I needed to make a doctor\u2019s appointment.\u00a0 I was starting to show, and the window for me to decide was rapidly closing.<\/p>\n
As I called the ob-gyn for a prenatal appointment, my fate seemed sealed.\u00a0 In that moment, I felt like everything was going to be okay.\u00a0 Somehow, in the place I least expected it, I had found comfort.\u00a0 (59-61)<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Now, I should frankly state my belief that divine inspiration is possible and that it is a reality.\u00a0 I\u2019ve experienced it myself on a few notable and distinct occasions, as have others that I know.\u00a0 With that question settled, though, another question (for Latter-day Saints) is whether those outside of the Church can receive it.\u00a0 To me, the teaching of the scriptures is absolutely clear on this point: Yes, they can.\u00a0 In fact, the entire missionary approach of the Church seems to me to be premised upon the expectation<\/em> that they can.\u00a0 And the story above, if Hadley Vlahos has related it accurately, appears to illustrate such an occurrence, in which inspiration was received by a clergyman of a different Christian denomination.\u00a0 I\u2019m entirely comfortable with that.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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