On the way to have my car oil changed the other day, and being in a hurry, without really looking, I reached for a book to pass the time. I took it off of a book shelf where my wife had been sorting old books. The one I took turned out to be by Stephen R. Covey, Spiritual Roots of Human Relations.
I came across a couple of paragraphs that I thought were meaningful, especially to those who think of themselves as intellectually blessed and therefore don’t really need much in the way of “the things of the Spirit”. Most of us who are less blessed in things of the intellect have a hard time believing that anyone would see themselves that way. However, they do exist and on occasion will say so. Apparently, brother Covey had such individuals in mind when he wrote the following:
Few things will inspire self-honesty and humility more than genuine, listening, two-way prayer. It brings us into living contact with the light and Spirit of Christ. In this attitude of perfect honesty, humility, reaching out, and dedication, we can literally have the Holy Ghost as our guide and companion; and he will bestow upon us a witness of the divinity of Jesus Christ.
However intelligent and knowledgeable we may be, unless we have a real and personal experience with the Spirit of God, we will know no more about Christ than the man blind from birth knows about light and sight, however glib he may be in describing the anatomy of the eye or the properties of light. P. 60.
Amen.
Here is a blog I put up on Sisal Soup, my blog, the other day on laukschun.blogspot.com. I was baptized at eight, not really active but graduated from BYU.
“Yesterday while driving to have lunch with Loraine Hawkins at Five Guys, I was listening to Janis Joplin singing Me and Bobby McGee on KODJ radio. It was a romp. I turned it up almost to the max.
“I realized as I always do when I listen to Pearl (Janis for those who did not survive the sixties) how close I came to not surviving the sixties. I was in the wind. (For those who don’t understand that, you’ve got to brush up on your Dylan.)
“My blood pressure rose, my heart rate gave its all and I responded to the human spirit and wished she were back for just a minute. Tune in to Youtube to maybe get a little of what I mean.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5FMhnl0__Vo
“I know this for a fact, dear folks. The Lord watches out for us all regardless of where we are. And I also know this. We are given the Spirit and we have the Spirit.
“I thank God every day of my life for Carl. I thank God every day for that night long ago in Spokane standing at the window watching him leave, for the glass left behind, for the still small voice that said, “If you let him go, you will be sorry every day of your life.”
“He is the best thing that ever happened to me. Just as my father told him. My dad never told me that. He probably didn’t dare. But it’s true. Carl is my life. That’s when I learned about the Spirit.”
The writer of this comment is a retired high school teacher. I taught English and religion at a Dutch school. I am a Dutchman. Now that I am retired I have a lot of spare time and every day I spend an hour or two visiting Christian websites and blogs. And every now and then I add a short comment of my own.
The last few days I happened to come across two blogs written by Mormons.
I do not restrict my reading to texts that come from a limited number of Churches or Christian denominations. I read everytrhing that I find interesting and worth spending some time on.
As regards the texts from Mormons that I read the last few days: I enjoyed reading them and they really served the purpose for which they were written: they set me thinking.
Some one or two decades ago you could find Mormons quite regularly in all major Dutch cities. Usually at places where they could expect lots of people to come passing by. I rember that they worked in groups of two. Always two young men. They always had some objects with them with which they tried to attract the attention of passers by. The most amazing thing for a language teacher like me was their perfect command of the Dutch language.
I never passed them by without listening to at least part of the stories they wanted to tell their audience. And I never left them without some reading material. One of them once gave me the book of Mormon. I read a large part of it, but I never finished it.
Neither did I ever go to their church-meetings, though I know that some of my friends and colleagues did.
I always admired the Mormons who had taken the trouble to interrupt their studies or their work to learn our language and come to Holland. Like I said: they spoke Dutch perfectly. But besides that: they were always very wel dressed, were polite and friendly and though it was obvious that they had come to us to bring a message, they had come for a well defined purpose……….they brought their message with a boyish sort of humour and never showed any form of arrogance or moral superiority or an air that demonstrated: our religion is far superior to yours.
But the last ten or fifteen years I have not seen them any more. Have they given up? Were the results of their great efforts and personal sacifices so insignificant that they decided going to Europe was simply not worth while?
I am really looking forward to an answer.
Brother Kooijman,
My mother’s, mother came to America from your part of the world. Her last name: Van Borem. She was born in Harlem, NH, Netherlands in 1885.
The Mormon Church or the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints currently has nearly 60,000 missionaries worldwide. To my knowledge there are still many LDS missionaries serving the Lord in the Netherlands.
I found the following links that may be of interest to you.
http://www.kerkvanjezuschristus.nl/
http://www.ldschurchtemples.com/thehague/
Thank you for visiting my blog. I enjoyed reading your comment. It was very interesting to me.
Dear Jared,
Thank you very much for your quick reply. The name Van Borem is not a very common name in Holland, but is sounds Dutch. Harlem is a very well-known place, not far away from Amsterdam.
I already visited the two websites you mentioned. The Dutch one is very informative and brought back into my memory quite a number of things I obce knew about the Mormons but had forgotten in the course of time. I highly appreciate your emphasis on family values and family ties. I am in the Philippines right now and two days ago my third grandson was born here.
After studying the map that I found on the Dutch website I saw that all your churches and also your temple are to be found in the West of our country and a few decades ago I moved to a place place in the East near the German border. This may explain the fact that I never see any Mormons any more in our public squares whereas you write that there the Mormons are still very active in our country.
Your temple which is not really situated in the Hague but in one of the suburbs of the Hague looks extremely beautiful. It also looks a lot like the churches of the IGLESIA NI CHRISTRO, which is very popular in the Philippines and also has some followers in the States.
Anyway, if I ever get a chance to visit one of your temples or one of your churches I will certainly do it.
I wish you and your brothers and sisters (in the faith) all the best. And a lot of success with the good work you are doing.
Dear Willem,
Thanks to you, as well. It was a pleasure to have you come by. And I wish you success in all your endeavors.
Hi Jared,
While I respect that sentiment that everyone needs to be spiritual, my only question for you, is have you really met any active, faithful Mormons who describe themselves as “those who think of themselves as intellectually blessed and therefore don’t really need much in the way of “the things of the Spirit”. ?” Or is this just an easy strawman and ad hominem argument to use against them? Just food for thought. As some who considers themself both intellectually and spiritually blessed, I can honestly say that those who need to read those quotes and change something in their life will be more put-off by your comment, than prodded to change.
For what it’s worth
psychochemiker–
Thanks for your question and comment.
You asked me if I have really met any active, faithful Mormons who describe themselves as intellectually blessed and therefore don’t really need much in the way of the things of the Spirit?
Indeed, I have. It isn’t something they focus on, but on occasion they will discuss it. Apparently some of them feel that their intellectual gifts allow them to think through problems to their satisfaction so they don’t feel a need to pray, while others, not so gifted, don’t have the same confidence and therefore feel a need to pray.
You mentioned the idea that I am against “them”. I don’t see myself doing that. I don’t feel any desire to be against anything. My desire is encourage those who come by my blog to reach for greater access to the things of the Spirit.
My approach doesn’t always go over as well as I would like. Your comment being a case in point. Others, however, give me a high five. For an example, see the first comment above.