“To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside of Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell.”  - C.S. Lewis

“I am afraid we have eyes bigger than our stomachs, and more curiosity than capacity. We embrace everything, but we clasp only wind.” — Michel de Montaigne

I think it really only comes down to a question of time. Pile up the amount of food someone eats over a lifetime and I doubt their eyes will desire more. Capacity is similarly time-sensitive and perhaps the saddest state of being is discovered by those who outlive their curiosity. And finally, the “clasping of wind”: this is only true if we believe that we lack time and consequently dart from one thing to the next, always beginning and abandoning but never loving and living.

Really, what Montainge is saying is this: “I am affraid we don’t have enought time.”

I say we do, but we just need heavenly patience and perserverance.

The Start of a New Year
See where we are going against the backdrop of where we have been

Talk about the Past and the Future

• In the context of any changes that we go through

2nd Shortest verse

• Luke 17:32
  • Remember Lot’s Wife.
• Out of the days of Sodom of Gomorrah
• escape for thy life, look not behind thee
• Lot’s wife looked back, and was turned to a pillar of salt
• Not talk about the evils of Sodom and Gomorrah, nor about these evils in today’s world, nor about even importance of obedience
• what was wrong wasn’t just that she was looking back… but that in her heart she wanted to GO back.
• It wasn’t just that she looked back, she resented leaving it
• Attachment to the past outweighed confidence in the future
• The past is to be learned from, not lived in.
• More theological way to talk about Lot’s wife, is to say that she lacked faith in the future and the Lord’s ability to provide something better for her
• Edwin Arlington Robbinson
  • Miniver Cheevy, child of scron….
  • Miniver loved the days of old….
  • Perennially dissatisfied with present circumstances
• Paul’s Letter to the Philippians
  • Philippines 3:13-14
• Out there, up ahead, wherever Heaven is taking us
• God doesn’t care as much about where you have been as he does about where you are, and more importantly where (with his help) you are willing to go…
• Robbert Browning
  • Grow old along with me!, the best is yet to be.
• Faith is for the future

As we approach this special time
And contemplate God’s gift sublime,
Let us look at Christ’s life as the way
That we should live our lives each day.

We know that He overcame each trial.
He always walked the second mile.
He healed the sick and raised the dead.
He made sure the hungry were fed.

“Come follow me,” was His request.
“I promise you that you’ll be blest.”
In crucifixion, He paid the price
So each of us could be blessed twice.

Resurrection is for all mankind.
Not one soul will be left behind.
He made it so that if we endeavor
To be like Him, we’ll live forever.

At Christmas time our thoughts are turned toward family and friends because of how each has blessed our lives.  We are grateful for how we feel about the purpose of life and the opportunity to live in this beautiful world with people who love us.  Our heart goes out to those who are seeking the same and pray that they will find the peace that we enjoy in the knowledge that God does live and that Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is the Redeemer of all mankind.  The greatest gift that can be given is the promise of eternal life.  “For God so loved the world that he gave His Only Begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in Him should not parish, but have everlasting life.” (John 3:16)

We wish each of you a Merry Christmas and a New Year full of many blessings.

Lots of love and best wishes, VerNon and Bernice Bingham

I was thinking about last year, though. I was in Hungary, far away from family and with no gifts under any tree. It was still Christmas though, and perhaps even more so. I spent my whole time serving other people and caring more about them than myself.

I want to care about people this year, and make that a focus of my holiday. Christ gave, so should I. But how and what should I give? I am open to suggestions. I’ve written a few ideas below of things that I can do to make this Christmas more centered on Christ. If you have any suggestions, feel free to add them.

My ideas:

• go the soup kitchen and serve meals
• sing carols at the nursing home
• create a reading schedule for the Christmas season focused on Christ’s birth and life
• …

Here are some photos of the Adventsingen and the First Presidency Devotional (if you want to watch it you can, just go to http://www.byu.tv and click on the tab “LDS Church Broadcasts”).

• Know Your Commitment
• Decide Now to Keep Them
• Follow the Master
• Set Realistic Goals
• Anticipate Opposition
• Reap Blessings

Flakiness is the antithesis of Commitment

“settle this in your hearts that ye will do the things I shall command you…”

even when our circumstances change, our commitment to follow God must not change

Any in-depth discussion of commitment keeping needs to discuss the parallel discussion of commitment making, that is, of asking others to commit to a thing. One problem of modern life is the contradictory nature of the multitude of commitments which come from various sources in life.

In other words, some commitments would consume us if we let them.

“Any community functions better when people in it keep their promises to live up to its accepted standards.”

She has come across in something of a stereotypical English stuffiness and rigidity

“Let’s Keep the Flakiness in the Kitchen”

Audience:

• Those who make and keep commitments
• Those who do not make or keep commitments
• Those who make commitments but do not keep them
• Those who do not make commitments but live as though they had
• Those who hesitate to commit to making the world a better place
• Those who care little about the world around them

My Commitments:

• Religious
  • Baptismal Covenants
  • Temple Covenants
  • Church Calling
• Social
  • Family
  • Friends
  • Fellow Humans
• Scholastic
  • Formal
  • Informal
• Work
  • Special Collections
  • Web-Work
  • Teach For America