“Take
Especial Care of Your Family”
Neal
A. Maxwell
Of
the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles”
April
1994
During the last days, when “all things shall be in commotion” (D&C 88:91), the restored gospel of Jesus
Christ provides so many essential things, including precious perspective of
seeing “things as they really are” (Jacob 4:13).
The eminent historian Will Durant wrote of the human need “to
seize the value and perspective of passing things. … We want to know that the
little things are little, and the big things big, before it is too late; we
want to see things now as they will seem forever—‘in the light of eternity.’”1
The gospel’s illumination provides so much greater perspective
for us concerning the role of the family.
Before citing some challenges to family life, consider, first,
brothers and sisters, how living without God in the world brings a functional
lack of consistent perspective. If there were no eternal truths, to what
principles would mortals look for guidance? If not accountable to God, to whom
are we ultimately accountable? Furthermore, if nothing is ever really wrong,
then no one is ever really responsible. If there are no fixed boundaries, then
there cannot be any excesses. Why should we be surprised, then, at so many
disturbing outcomes, including the lack of community, when every man does that
which is “right in his own eyes” (Judg. 17:6; Judg. 21:25) and seeks not the righteousness
of the Lord but instead walks “in his own way”? (D&C 1:16).
Reflect, for instance, on how inoperative the Ten Commandments
are in many lives. Today, killing,
stealing, and bearing false
witness still carry some social stigma and legal sanction, but
sanction is effectively gone regarding sexual immorality, the Sabbath day,
honoring fathers and mothers, and the taking of the name of the Lord in vain.
Some of this decline represents the bitter harvest of ethical relativism, the
philosophy of choice of many, reflecting no fixed, divine truths but merely the
mores of the moment. No wonder Ortega y Gasset wisely warned, “If truth does
not exist, relativism cannot take itself seriously.”2
Note several terrible trends which, if uncorrected, will
produce an even worse coalition of consequences.
·
In ten years, one-half of all children born in America will be
illegitimate.3
·
More and more children have no functioning fathers. Already 70
percent of our juvenile criminals come from fatherless homes.4
·
Less than half of all children born today will live continuously
with their own mother and father throughout childhood.5
·
One-fourth of all adolescents … contract a sexually transmitted
disease before they graduate from high school.6
·
Fifty-five percent of American children under the age of six …
have both parents or their only parent working in the labor force.7
Father Lehi once described himself as a “trembling parent” (2 Ne. 1:14). There are trembling parents and
grandparents today! Some of today’s families already exist in a worse
wilderness than did Father Lehi’s. Healthy, traditional families are becoming
an endangered species! Perhaps, one day, families may even rank with the
threatened spotted owl in effective attention given!
As parenting declines, the need for policing increases. There
will always be a shortage of police if there is a shortage of effective
parents! Likewise, there will not be enough prisons if there are not enough
good homes.
There is, as we all know, much talk about family values, but
rhetoric, by itself, cannot bring reform. Nostalgically, many wish for the
family life of yesteryear; they regard family decline as regrettable but not
reversible. Others, genuinely worried over the spilling social consequences,
are busy placing sandbags downstream, even when the frenzied use of sandbags
often destroys what little is left of family gardens. A few regard the family
as an institution to be drastically redefined or even to be rid of.
There are no perfect families, either in the world or in the
Church, but there are many good families. My spiritual applause also goes to
those heroic parents—left alone by death or divorce—who are righteously and
“anxiously engaged” in nurturing and providing for their families, often
against such heavy odds.
Alas, in some families things do go wretchedly wrong, but these
gross failures are no reason to denigrate further the institution of the
family. We should make course corrections and fix the leaks, not abandon ship!
Much modern despair and violence grow out of unhealthy attitudes
towards any authority, including that in families. Thirty-five years ago, a BBC
commentator insightfully worried “that we are turning out adults who have an
even less clear and consistent attitude towards authority than we have
ourselves, and who will be even less capable than their parents in raising
children with a sane attitude towards authority, and so an insidious avalanche
may be developing, gathering a ghastly momentum from generation to generation.”8
The “ghastly momentum” increases as profound social changes now
occur in “only a few years” (Moro. 9:12).
Unfortunately, it is easier to praise the family than to create
a successful family. It is easier to talk, as I am doing, of family values than
to implement those values. It is easier to rejoice over our rich memories of a
good family than to provide the rising generation with its own rich memories.
The hard doctrines, however, insist that we ask some hard
questions. How can a nation nurture family values without consistently valuing
and protecting the family in its public policies? How can we value the family
without valuing parenting? And how can we value parenting if we do not value
marriage? How can there be “love at home” without love in a marriage? So many
selfish tugs draw fathers and mothers away from each other and away from their
children.
In contrast, so much of the Restoration focuses on fundamental
principles pertaining to the family, including sealings of eternal families.
Latter-day Saints therefore have no choice but to stand up and to speak up
whenever the institution of the family is concerned, even if we are
misunderstood, resented, or brushed aside.
After all, mortal families predate the founding of nations, and
families will exist after the Almighty “hath made a full end of all nations” (D&C 87:6). For Latter-day Saints, though
it is to be done in the Lord’s own way, every year should be the Year of the
Family. However, as Latter-day Saints, we need to do better in our
families—much better! There should be less wringing of hands and more loving
arms around our families.
Of all the work of “perfecting the Saints,” none compares to
that done in healthy families. President David O. McKay taught, “The home is
the basis of a righteous life, and no other instrumentality can take its place,
nor fulfill its essential functions.”9 Sometimes,
unintentionally, even certain extracurricular Church activities, insensitively
administered, can hamper family life.
Instructively, after the resurrected Jesus taught the Nephites,
He said, “Go ye unto your homes, and ponder upon the things which I have said,”
and pray and prepare “for the morrow” (3 Ne. 17:3). Jesus did not say go to your
civic clubs, town meetings, or even stake centers!
Attending to all family duties includes really teaching our
children “to understand the doctrine of repentance, faith in Christ the Son of
the living God” (D&C 68:25). What a different view of
parenting from that of the world. Marie Winn lamented in Children without Childhood how
there is an emerging but unjustified tendency to treat children as if they have
the capacity for unrestricted adult experience.10 Brothers and
sisters, we may not be able to change such trends, but we can refuse to be a
part of them.
When parents fail to transmit testimony and theology along with
decency, those families are only one generation from serious spiritual decline,
having lost their savor. The law of the harvest is nowhere more in evidence and
nowhere more relentless than in family gardens!
In addition to our having loving family “sociality,” which, one
day, will be “coupled with eternal glory,” we stress again and again the
available remedies of family prayers, family home evenings, and family
scripture study (D&C 130:2). Moreover, personal revelation
regarding parenting can provide customized guidance and reassurance!
Applying basic remedies will take some time and will not fix
everything immediately. What could be more basic, however, than “love at home,”
when annually in America there are four million reports of domestic violence,
rivaling the number of births in America!11 Violence in
America now kills “the equivalent of a classroomful” of children “every two
days.”12
In the face of such challenges, we need more mothers who know
the truth, whose children do not doubt their mothers know it (see Alma 56:48). My children and grandchildren are
blessed with such a mother and grandmother. We need more kind and thoughtful
fathers who also carry the authority of example. More parents should be
remembered as a prophet’s daughter, Helen Lee Goates, remembers hers: “A father
who was gentle beneath his firmness, and a mother who was firm beneath her
gentleness.”13
In the healthy family, first and best, we can learn to listen,
forgive, praise, and to rejoice in the achievements of others. There also we
can learn to tame our egos, work, repent, and love. In families with spiritual
perspective, yesterday need not hold tomorrow hostage. If we sometimes act the
fool, loving families know this is not our last act; the curtain is not rung
down.
To some, these remedies, and things like them, may seem too
simple to heal a society stung by so many afflictions. In afflicted ancient
Israel, some also disdained the simple, divinely provided remedies, and they
perished (see 1 Ne. 17:41).
Obviously, family values mirror our personal priorities. Given
the gravity of current conditions, would parents be willing to give up just one
outside thing, giving that time and talent instead to the family? Parents and
grandparents, please scrutinize your schedules and priorities in order to
ensure that life’s prime relationships get more prime time! Even consecrated
and devoted Brigham Young was once told by the Lord, “Take especial care of
your family” (D&C 126:3). Sometimes, it is the most
conscientious who need this message the most!
Society should focus anew on the headwaters—the family—where
values can be taught, lived, experienced, and perpetuated. Otherwise, brothers
and sisters, we will witness even more widespread flooding downstream,
featuring even more corruption and violence (see Gen. 6:11–12; Matt. 24:37).
If the combination of rainmakers prevails, however, the rains
will continue to descend, and the floods will continue to come. Dikes and
sandbags downstream will be no match for the coming crests. More and more families,
even nations, if built upon secular sand instead of gospel granite, will
suffer.
As the number of dysfunctional families increases, their
failures will spill into already burdened schools and streets. It is not a
pretty scene even now.
Nations in which traditional idealism gives way to modern
cynicism will forfeit the blessings of heaven, which they so urgently need, and
such nations will also lose legitimacy in the eyes of their citizens.
Amid the Babel of prescriptions from “so many kinds of voices in
the world,” rescuing and redeeming perspective requires our coming to know who
Jesus Christ is, how He lived, and what He died for (1 Cor. 14:10; see also John 10:27). After all, it is Jesus who has
given us commanding perspective concerning families.
Therefore, as this Easter day draws to a close, how fitting that
we contemplate atoning Jesus—bending and curved in Gethsemane. His bleeding
curvature transformed the grammar of death. Until Gethsemane and Calvary, death
was a punctuating, rigid exclamation point! Then death, too, curved—into a mere
comma!
Praise be to Jesus for bearing the sins and pains of all “the
family of Adam” back then (2 Ne. 9:21; 2 Ne. 2:20). Let us strive here and now to take
especial care of our families as Jesus did of His, “even the family of all the
earth” (2 Ne. 2:20). I so pray in the name of Jesus
Christ, amen.
“Hard Places Softened”
cji
2/10/19
The family is attacked
almost now extinct
belittles often in msm
comedians make jokes
tv makes shame
movies preach cheating
clothing immorality
hard times and places
however to be softened
by fighting in ranks
repulsing the attackers
turning to the
Scriptures
turning to Heavenly
Father
listening to His Son
our Lord and Savior
hard time softened
by internal family
love!
Copyright ©
2019 – cji
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