The constant calling back

This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey. This week covers the Sunday Morning Session of the April 1980 Conference. 

At church on Sunday, Sam and I were in the teacher council class with Baby Ezekiel, and we put him down on the floor in the middle of our circle of chairs. Ziggy is just starting to crawl, arm-over-arm, and he was quite delighted to have this big open space to do it in, so he enthusiastically set off, hiccuping loudly, and all the people in the class smiled down at him as he made the rounds of the circle. He would crawl to one person and try to bite his scriptures, and then crawl to someone else and grab her shoes, and then crawl to someone else and smile up into her face, and so on. Every once in awhile Zig would get a little upset, so someone would pick him up and coo at him for awhile, and then they'd set him down and off he'd go! It was so cute, and it made me a little teary because I felt like everyone else in the room was watching and loving Ziggy right along with Sam and me. It felt like a true ward family—so many people we love and who love us too! Zig seemed so safe in that circle--venturing out and exploring, but watched over and bordered by so many friends who loved him.

I thought about that loving border of friends when I read this quote from Elder Marion G. Romney's talk on the Book of Mormon:

We must not permit our minds to become surfeited with the interests, things, and practices of the world about us. To do so is tantamount to adopting and going along with them... 

If we would avoid adopting the evils of the world, we must pursue a course which will daily feed our minds with and call them back to the things of the Spirit. I know of no better way to do this than by daily reading the Book of Mormon.

I know all about that sort of consistent "calling back" because I feel like it's such a constant need with children! During school, I am always having to redirect them back to what they should be doing! Or having to remind them five hundred times a day to speak kindly to each other! And with Ziggy, it's the same sort of thing—constantly getting him out from under chairs he can't fit under, or steering him away from the stairs, or pulling him back from the edge of the bed.

And I feel it with myself, too. I don't want to be "surfeited with the interests, things, and practices of the world," but I do get that way anyway! I have so many resolves in my prayers every morning, but then I find myself immediately forgetting what I mean to do! It takes a constant "calling back" to focus my mind on spiritual goals or spiritual promptings. And sometimes I'm not sure how to do that calling back on my own! I like President Romney's reminder that the Book of Mormon can serve that purpose for us, if we will read it daily. It can gently nudge us back into the circle of Heavenly Father's love, when, left to ourselves, we might persist in heading out of it!

I've never really liked the saying that "it takes a village to raise a child" (not that I don't agree with the sentiment, but it's what some people MEAN about the role of government, etc., when they quote that statement that annoys me)—but as I watched Ziggy happily crawl from person to person in our circle at church, I couldn't help but imagine that same kind of circle of people around me in my life. Maybe some of them are spirits who have passed on, like my Dad or other relatives. Some of them are friends and leaders that care about me, and even prophets and apostles I've never met. Some of them are my family members here on earth. But as I bungle around trying to figure out how to get where I want to go, I feel their influence steering me gently but steadily back to the fundamental truths I know I should focus on. I feel their love urging me to stay firmly in the holy places they have taught me to look for.

And I like to add the prophets in the Book of Mormon to that mental image, because they truly have been among those calling me back to things of the spirit. King Benjamin with his piercing questions. Alma the Younger, boldly telling and re-telling his experience being reborn of God. Mormon's constant interjecting voice, reminding me that in a centuries-long quest to teach the truths of God, the stakes were real and powerful for an entire civilization. And of course the voice of Jesus Christ that is woven in and through the words on every page.

I don't always feel like I have the personal encounter with Christ that I am wishing for as I read the Book of Mormon. But I know as I keep engaging with it daily, I will have that "constant calling back to things of the spirit," allowing me to move closer and closer to Him all the time.


Other posts in this series:

• We Testify, We Declare, and We Affirm by Jan Tolman