Carrie McIntyre | The Relevant Questions

When I was 19, I lived and worked in downtown SLC. Every single lunch break, I sat at Temple Square looking directly at the temple or at the Christus statue in the visitors center. A temple never stops being the most inspiring thing you’ve ever seen. It’s alive with the light of Christ. And this one (of course!) is living, breathing history.

As I mentioned during my general conference address Sunday morning, followers of Christ should follow Him by forgoing contention and by using the language and methods of peacemakers. In our families and other personal relationships, let us avoid what is harsh and hateful. Let us seek to be holy, like our Savior.

He who pours you a bitter cup has poured out of his own bitter vessel. Hurt people hurt people; the pains he delivers are from his own storehouse. God does not demand you remain under such abuse (he loves you too, do not forget). But rather than anger and vengeance, let this understanding lead you to godly pity. Consider it your part in the Lord’s suffering if you must drain the cup set before you. Return it filled with sweetness and depart from your enemy with peace upon your lips. That may be the hardest thing you ever have to do. You may not feel it at all at the time—the first time, or the second time, maybe not entirely in this lifetime. Practice anyway. The Lord will bless your efforts. As the Father waited for His Son to fall into His arms at the bottom of the Great Bitter Cup, He will catch us as the bottom of ours, and heal our wounds, and absorb our sorrow. What meager mercy you manage to deliver, He will replenish in abundance.

There’s enough pain and suffering in the world. Let your doorstep be the place where it ends. Justice is the Lord’s; intercede for your fellow beings before Christ as mercifully as He has interceded for you before the Father. Because He will give you justice, eventually, if you seek it. But what He most desires is to discover in the deepest recesses of your heart that you no longer desire it but rather weep for those who hate you, with godly pity and tender entreatment that they too may find mercy before the Lord.

From The Relevant Questions blog archive: Drinking The Bitter Cup (And Loving The Enemy Who Poured It) - March 28, 2021 There will come a time in each of our lives (sometimes more than one time) when this great test presents itself more starkly than a human heart can bear alone: “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you” (Matt. 5:44). It’s the most counterintuitive entreaty in all of Christendom. Love your enemies. Do good to them that hate you. The world expects no such concession of us. Precisely the opposite—the world expects us to retaliate. Forgiveness, Man teaches, is a mercy reserved for the remorseful, whether their contrition grew organically or was compelled by acts of justified revenge that brought an offender to his knees in humiliation. “An eye for an eye” was always the world’s way. It’s the logical way, the rawest form of justice, which all understand and embrace. Justice restores natural societal balance quickly. Justice feels good. But justice only balances (and violently, upon the soul.) It is mercy that makes mankind holy, and mercy is only mercy when undeserved. Mercy is when the full weight of justice is in my hand like an executioner’s sword, but I choose to lay it down. It’s when I choose to walk away, or at best, choose to open my arms and embrace my oppressor with forgiveness.

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@LatterDayCool Very true, links that leave the current app are far less visited. 👍

@RelevantQuest Any effort to bring forward and promote peacemaking is welcomed. The less clicks the more likely it gets seen by those that may need it that won't click the link.

Love your enemy. #GeneralConference askrelevantquestions.wordpress.com/2021/03/28/dri…

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Carrying this metaphor further: The Law of Moses, as well as generally-just laws in government, declare that when the kid next to you walks over your sand castle, you’re allowed compensation—you may walk over his, or he must rebuild yours, or he must receive disapproval or punishment from the rule-giver: maybe Mom gets involved. Is Mom trying to preserve some sand castle city that’s here for a moment and washed out to sea the next? Of course not. The rules of a just parent are there to make you. She’s raising you to be an exceptional person. And what does she hope you will do? If you were the perpetrator of this beach crime, whether accidentally or on purpose, a benevolent mother wants you to choose to fix it. She wants you to apologize, offer to rebuild it, care about the other child’s feelings. She wants her justice to be unnecessary. If you were on the receiving end of Kid-zilla’s destructive rampage, what does she want from you then? She wants you to forgive him. She may hope he attempts to reconcile his error, but her business is with you: she wants you to be someone who forgives regardless of what comes next from the offender, or for the offender, regardless of that child’s moral compass and attendant house rules. If his mother grants you permission to knock down his castle as punishment, your mother wants you to refuse. When the sword of destructive justice is in your hand, she wants you to lay it down and opt for constructive ways to settle the matter. When the sun has set, you’re all going home and your sand cities will be sand once more. Our temporary adornments of rocks, sticks, and feathers, our carefully trenched motes and bark drawbridges, our kingdom-politics with the surrounding monarchies, were but dust and puddles. They were not here for us to make. They were here to make us, one by one. What ways can you think of to advance Christlike social mercy in the world, your community, your home, and yourself? What work can you do, beneath the din and clamor of the angry mobs, to promote reconciliation, love, and healing? Talk about it. Live consciously. Make plans. Cold justice is the inevitable rebalancing of the universe when mercy could not intervene. Servants of Christ must eagerly, anxiously deliver mercy before time runs out. Be a social mercy warrior. (3/3)

Justice is the law, but not the virtue. Natural Law demands balance. Riding a bicycle is a series of tiny rebalances—we tip to one side & quickly correct by leaning to the other. Our vehicle must maintain speed in order to remain balanced. Without these regular justifications, the bike will topple over. Justice must be served where mercy is either refused or not presented. Justice is not God’s first choice for correcting imbalance among his children. It is painful, traumatic, and produces a lesser harvest. As we learn repeatedly in the scriptures, those trees which produce undesirable and sparse fruit, whose branches grow wild and canker the orchard, must either be redeemed from their corrupt state or burned in order to spare the ground, the health of surrounding trees, and the entire orchard. It is not what he wants. He provides repeated mercies upon these trees. He mourns for their loss. Eventually, justice must abide and balance be restored. The fact that justice is necessary does not mean it is ideal. If it was, a Savior would not have been necessary, as justice would have done the trick. Why was mercy necessary? Because without it, justice would have impartially and indifferently destroyed us all. That’s just the natural correction of the bicycle. Justice is but the planned or natural reaction to an imbalance in the code. It will restore order to the universe (or a society, or a person). Man is wildly imperfect at administering it, but he tries. Justice, perfectly administered, has no opinion, desires no harm, shows no affection. Justice is what has to happen—when mercy is absent. Mercy is what God wants to do, and what he wants us to do. It’s a determined choice, at worst very hard to make, and at best, something we rush with anxious affection to administer. Why is cultural justice so popular these days? I can think of one reason, as described by CS Lewis in The Screwtape Letters: “What is the value of casting our affections out across the world toward causes will never really know us? It’s noble to try to change the world, after all. It’s when we replace personal responsibility within our literal relationships, our care for those within our immediate grasp for care of a generalized, untouchable cause far without our personal reach, that trouble ensues. When we can cast our affections and attentions afar, we can avoid self-examination and preserve an attitude of contention, suspicion, and destruction toward those within our own sphere. Our relentless shouting for ‘justice’ drowns out the clarion call to repentance and personal improvement.” Christ’s new covenant made his doctrine very personal. He taught us to choose mercy over justice, one by one; to “love thy neighbor”—thy neighbor, the person living within our reach, the person standing next to us—as ourselves. He taught us to offer up something beyond human law, something irrational, something nobody expects or demands: absolution without destruction, balancing the scale of Natural Law by absorbing a blow instead of returning in kind. The way of Christ in his earthly ministry was not collective justice but individual mercy—choosing love, one by one; carefully healing each tree of the vineyard in hopes of saving it from the mournful day of burning justice that must come when all efforts for mercy have been exhausted. God’s plan was always agency through opposition and individual mercy through redemption. Collective equality devoid of choice or merit was the plan of our enemy. God designed a world to make us better, one by one. He knows that mortality is an unsustainable condition for any world, that the primitive civilizations which children such as ourselves fashion out of crude materials through young intellects must inevitably crumble in the end. We are toddlers in the sand; he is not trying to save our sloppy castles from the tide. He is making us builders. (2/3)

Congruent to President Dallin H. Oaks’ GC talk about loving our enemies, a full transcription (in three parts) from The Relevant Questions blog archive. Longer form, for interested followers. Thanks for reading. 🫡😊 Social Mercy Warriors - Jan. 2, 2022 Every developed society we would describe as “civilization” has encountered a similar intellectual shift near the end of its existence: a collective cry for justice. Justice, like many qualities, is not itself a virtue and rather becomes a vice when divorced from its companion virtues—wisdom, temperance, discernment, forbearance. Without virtue, justice becomes an arrow that will spin in any direction. The result of this is a collective cry for social justice—for all things in society to have absolute equity and fairness. The problem with equity and fairness devoid of virtue is that there is no consensus on what that means (“Every man walketh in his own way, and after the image of his own god” —D&C 1:16) and mutual prudence is unseated by envy, fear, anger, and strife. The only point agreed upon is that life is unfair, and the perpetrator is whomever disagrees with one’s own tribe. Life is unfair, as it turns out. All things are not equal. Some suffer while others thrive. This is the natural condition of mortality. To seek justice is moral, when it is moral justice. But such an endeavor cannot succeed in an immoral society. As evidenced throughout history, it actually results in further evil. The French Revolution ended in mob rage and manic bloodshed. The Nephite civilization ended at the tip of the Lamanite spear—wielded as recompense for perceived injustices carefully curated since the moment Nephi was pronounced leader over Laman. When the Messiah arrived on earth, the Jews expected a social justice warrior. They expected to be liberated from the political oppression of the Roman Empire. What they got instead was a man who said “Render therefore unto Cæsar the things which are Cæsar’s” (Matt. 22:21) and “Resist not evil: but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. If any man will sue thee at the law, and take away thy coat, let him have thy cloak also” (Matt 5:39-40). The society of Christ’s day wanted social justice, not personal justification. They wanted liberation and condemnation upon their state rulers, not eternal liberation and a call to mercy upon one’s enemies. This Jesus was not a warrior for social justice. He was a advocate of individual mercy. He was here to introduce the law of a Zion society—a society that could only be built among citizens with hearts full of mercy, forgiveness, and pure love. Social mercy (in culture, community, society, and personal relationships) is recognizing your right to justice—being handed the sword against your enemy—and choosing to set it down. It’s forgiving instead of cancelling. It’s giving others a chance to improve, helping the downcast to stand. It’s loving those who curse you. Social mercy is individual mercy performed privately and publicly, even when unpopular. It’s snuffing out the fuse lit in your behalf, especially when doing so may be unfavorable to your public esteem. Social mercy is the Savior’s way: he too denied society the mortal spoils it was hoping to receive from a savior. He taught them higher laws with eternal consequences, told them to turn the other cheek, go the second mile, and forgive those who persecute us. It was not a popular message. It was the only way to cure a sick society: no feeble mortal structure of laws would build a Zion worthy of heaven’s light. (1/3)

When we consider the character of the Savior we tend to focus immediately on His attributes, such as virtue, integrity, humility, compassion, and courage, but we should also consider, what is it in Jesus that gives rise to such character traits? I believe they are the natural fruit of the thoughts, desires, and intents of His heart. Christlike character grows out of a Christlike heart. Thus, if we are to succeed in developing a Christlike character, we must possess His motivations—His thoughts, desires, and intents of the heart. For us, it will require what the scriptures call a “mighty change of heart.” Jesus thinks and acts out of pure love; He yearns to bless and lift others; and He delights to do the will of God. With faith in Christ, we can pray that the Holy Spirit will effect a mighty change in us to instill these same divine motivations in our heart and help us practice the attributes of a Christlike character. #GeneralConference "Little Lamb" by Greg Olsen. Used with Permission. GregOlsen.com

The literal resurrection of Jesus is, of course, the subject of so many scriptures that it is settled doctrine for believers of the Bible and Book of Mormon. For us, the universal resurrection is equally certain. I wonder if we fully appreciate the enormous significance of our belief in a literal, universal resurrection. The conviction that death is not the conclusion of our identity changes the whole perspective of our mortal life. It affects how we look on the physical challenges of mortality. It gives us the strength and perspective to endure the mortal challenges faced by each of us and by those we love. It signifies that mortal deficiencies are only temporary! It also gives us the courage to face our own death or that of loved ones—even deaths we might call premature. Our belief in the resurrection also encourages us to fulfill our family responsibilities in mortality. It helps us live together in love in this life in anticipation of joyful reunions and associations in the next. #GreaterLove #GeneralConference Artwork: “Above All” by Kelsy and Jesse Lighweave

@RigMatthew Unintentional ASMR level EXPERT. What a voice! 💤😴💤

@RelevantQuest He would record his General Conference talks in Spanish. Met him in early 2000s.

We have a lot of new faces to learn. We’ll come to love them as much as any who have passed on. Post a photo of a Church leader you miss and one of a living leader who currently tops your list. I can think of so many! Honorable mentions: D. Todd Christofferson and Dieter F. Uchtdorf #GeneralConference