Of Jesus Christ and Life

Life.  Jesus said, “I am the life” (Doctrine & Covenants 11:28).

Jesus said, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.” (Matthew 22:32)

Jesus said, “Verily, verily, I say unto you, The hour is coming, and now is, when the dead shall hear the voice of the Son of God:  and they that hear shall live.  For as the Father hath life in himself; so hath he given to the Son to have life in himself” (John 5:25, 26).

I will tell you the story of a German woman, whom for this relation I will name Hertha Lux Bullerman.  Hertha was the mother of 5 children, three boys and two girls.  She lived in far eastern Germany.

Her first child was a daughter, Ursula.  Her second was her first son.  He was named Fritz.  Ursula and Fritz were close, as first and second born children can be.

 

Next was born another son, named Hubertus.  Hubertus died a day short of four weeks after he was born.  Hertha’s next child was a third son, to whom was given a name similar to his brother’s, perhaps in memory of his brother who lived such a short time.  This third son was named Hubert.  Hubert died from typhus, a few days short of his third birthday.  Last born of the children was Hertha’s second daughter, named Christa.

Hertha Lux Bullerman outlived all of her children except her oldest, Ursula.  She also outlived her husband, Alfred, who died in 1938 of an incurable disease, just a few short years before that disease, tuberculosis, became very curable.

The family was religious.  Alfred was a Lutheran minister, and they all lived in the parsonage, along with Hertha’s father for a time, who was an organist for the church.  It was Ursula’s job to work the pump that gave the air that gave the sound to the pipes of the organ.  For Ursula, as a child, that was hard work.  You could get tired long before the music was through.

 

Ursula’s grandfather, Theodor Bruno Waldemar, was proud of her.  They would often walk in the town, old grandfather and young granddaughter.  When other children saw them walking together, they would sometimes call out, “There comes the old musician, with his daughter, the clarinet.”  Grandfather would beam with pride, while Ursula thought altogether differently about the peer recognition.

I speak of these things and these people, because this is life, and they lived it.  And they are all children of God, the God of the living.

Yet so much of it happened before my mortal life, before I arrived on earth and my mortal reality began.  Did it really happen?  How could it be real?  Are the people of the past, of long ago and not so long ago, real?  I am quite sure that it was and that they are.

One year and a month after the death of Hertha’s husband, Alfred, Germany was at war with nearly all of its neighbors.

Hertha’s remaining son, Fritz, was 16 when the war began.  Before the war was over he would serve in a tank on the Russian front.  Fritz never returned home.  He died, in late autumn of 1943, in Ukraine, not far from where there is war again today.

A year later, in November 1944, the old musician, Hertha’s father, died.  Of Hertha’s family, she and her two daughters remained.  In not many weeks all three would flee for their lives from the Red Army.

The three women, barely fitting on the overcrowded refugee train, could take very little with them.  Why did Hertha bring with her the folder containing her family history?  With her world crashing down around her, with so many of her family and friends gone, with her homeland behind her and a merciless enemy at her back, why would those records of the dead have any value?  Were these people who had gone, children, husband, father, family, real anymore?

Jesus said, “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

Jesus said, “I am the life”.

Hertha and her daughters, Ursula and Christa, found refuge in southern Germany.  Though her new home would soon be occupied by another enemy, it was a more merciful one than the communists.

Hertha and both daughters survived the war.  The younger one, Christa, married and had children of her own, though she died from an illness in the mid-1960s.  The older sister, Ursula, married an American soldier and came to the United States.  She brought with her that treasured folder of family history, preserved by Hertha through fire and flame, through tragedy and chaos.

Ursula herself died just 10 years ago, from Alzheimer’s disease.  She had forgotten much of what I have remembered for you today.  While my mother’s memory of these people faded away the people did not.  She regained them and her memory of them all just as she joined them in the world of spirits.

We all have such stories.  I am glad for those that I have saved.  I wish that I had saved more.  That folder of family history mattered very much.  Why did my grandmother entrust that folder to my mother?  My grandmother rescued more than her daughters in the cold winter of 1945.

Because the atonement and resurrection of Jesus Christ extend life to all, I have confidence in the day when we shall be united.  

Of Blasphemy and Racism

Blasphemy!  Heresy!  Treason!  Racism!  All loaded words, used less to convey meaning than for their effect as weapons.  Few weapons in history have been as powerful.  They have killed thousands, perhaps millions, and silenced many more.  “Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me.”  These will.  They are intended to.

Consider “blasphemy.”  It is a common hammer of religious leaders who are doubtful of their deity’s ability to defend himself.  These nervous clerics and acolytes step in to threaten and, where they can, inflict the harshest penalties against any and all they accuse of “blasphemy,” which usually means saying anything that the listeners consider untoward or disrespectful vis-à-vis their deity.  The harshness of the penalties, and the vagueness of what qualifies as an infraction, create a terror that intimidates both speech and action among others, which is the basic purpose of the label.  The religious leaders of Judea during the days of Jesus’ mortal ministry repeatedly tried to silence Him by hurling “blasphemy” at Him.   On the day of His death, they cried blasphemy to stir up the anger of the population—although they used another word, “treason,” when addressing the Roman authorities.  Several dozen nations today (with little opposition from the U.S. State Department or other executive branch officials) are seeking to make blasphemy a globally recognized crime, at least when touching upon Islam or its sensitivities.

“Heresy” has similar uses.  Rather than a crime of the impious, it is invoked in pious disagreements about whom or what is sacred.  The Spanish Inquisition comes readily to mind.  The accusation seems to be most commonly employed by those who lack confidence in the convincing power of their doctrines when faced with competing ones.  “Heresy” is intended to close ears, “heretic” to silence speakers, both intended to end the debate.

Next we come to “treason,” which can be a real phenomenon and a genuine crime against the nation or people, and when proved and the traitor caught usually answered with stern—if not brutal—penalties.  Genuine treason puts the nation or community at risk by exposing weaknesses to enemies. 

In former times, as well as in nations governed by authoritarian regimes, “treason” has been invoked, however, less to label traitors to the state and the society as to subdue opponents to the supreme leader.  Kings, emperors, czars, dictators, and others of the ilk sit nervously on their thrones—and for good reason.  They lack legitimacy yet enjoy immense power (or its illusion), which lures other would-be despots.  Nearly every one of the Roman emperors, for example, met death at human hands.  The Soviet Union never had a legitimate transfer of power from one boss to the next.  Tyrants, therefore, have little tolerance for opposition and are credulous of every rumor of resistance.  That makes accusations of “treason” powerful tools of terror for scoundrels in such societies to employ to settle grudges, dispose of enemies, steal lands and wealth, or otherwise gain advantage.  Many innocents have been so victimized.

Which brings us to “racism.”  This is a modern weaponized word.  Originally coined to identify people who would justify plunder and oppression by employing racial prejudices, it has been preserved long after such plans and schemes are suppressed by law and proscribed by social convention.  Indeed, the word only works as a weapon because of the universal social opprobrium already attached to it.  Its power as an epithet comes because no one in civil society considers it tolerable, any actual existence a bizarre aberration.  Calling someone “racist” is tantamount to accusing him of being unfit for public association and worthy of ostracism.  It is therefore used most commonly today, like the use throughout history of the other weapon words, to end debate, to intimidate opponents, to plunder wealth, and in general to gain advantage.  “Racism” is the modern world’s “blasphemy,” “heresy,” and even “treason.”  “Racism” is used to cause hurt, even where the absence of authentic racism causes none.  Worse, it is used by real racists to shield or camouflage their own bigotry.

Employed as a weapon word, racism is losing meaning.  When was the last time you heard a reasoned discussion and debate of racism?  Intellectual dialog is avoided for fear that raising the subject in an impartial way will court exposure to accusation, much as discussion of blasphemy, heresy, and treason in times past.  What is left, for example, when racism no longer means conscious prejudicial action but is applied—as it is by the Obama Administration—to mean manufactured statistical discrepancies among people who admittedly have no intention to act in a prejudicial manner? 

For the wielders of the weapon, the meaning of racism must be kept general and undefined to maximize the number of potential targets.  Feeding the outrage attached to it is a constant labor as is constantly finding new eruptions of racism where none exist.  The recognition of racism (especially where it is absent) must be automatic and assumed proven when employed—addressed if at all only by the mea culpa of the accused, followed by public contrition and the ceding of wealth or advantage to the accusers.

Where, I wonder, does the real racism lie?  Can racial distinction and prejudice wither when they are regularly conjured for personal advantage?   What does that do to a society where laws and culture already universally hold racism in contempt?  What is the appropriate term for the moguls of the racism industry who prosper by the preservation and promotion of racism?  When will the public immolations for private gain end?