Re: Were we there? Were we they?
- From: hthalljr@xxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 17 Nov 2005 04:47:45 GMT
On Tue, 15 Nov 2005 23:20:47 EST, in message
<zsyef.35832$Vb.20328@trndny05>,
Matthew Johnson <matthew_mem...@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
[snip]
>>Matthew,
>>
>>Thank you for your response. Before I reply, I would like to conclude,
>>in private, our exchange of last June. Kindly send me a working email
>>address so that I can fulfill the promise I made to you.
> I don't give out my email address. Sorry.
I sought to communicate with you in private because I felt that it
would be less confrontational and more conducive to mutual
understanding. However, I am content to conclude the matter in public.
On Mon, 30 May 2005 22:25:47 EDT, in message
<rm7le.2234$Ri3.1574@trnddc09>, I wrote:
http://tinyurl.com/ag56k
[snip]
> Chris, you suggest that "clarity of language" should be about
> developing tolerance for other religions. I accept your invitation.
> In the interests of "coming to an understanding" of each other, and of
> "learning the doctrine" of one another, I invite us to investigate each
> other's religion. I invite you and Matthew to each suggest a book that
> means a lot to you and would help me to understand your religion. It
> should be no more than 500-600 pages, shouldn't be too intellectually
> challenging ("Religion X for Dummies" might work), should be available
> for purchase, and should cost me no more than $50. I promise to read
> each book regularly, over the course of a year, with an open and
> prayerful heart, and to report back separately to each of you
> regularly, in private, about those things in the book that I can accept
> as true and intend to incorporate into my life. If there are things I
> can't understand, I will seek clarification, but I promise that I will
> not attack anything I can't accept. Before each reading I will say a
> prayer to this effect,
> "Heavenly Father, Chris Smith (or Matthew Johnson) has shared this book
> with me as something meaningful to him that will help me to better
> understand his religion. Please open my heart to all truth that is
> found herein, help me to change my life to conform to that truth, and
> help me to respect Chris (or Matthew) for anything that he believes
> that I find I cannot accept. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."
> I believe that at the end of the year I will have a greater
> understanding for your religion and will be a step closer to loving my
> neighbor as myself.
> I invite you to do the same for me. The book that I ask you to read,
> that means everything in the world to me, is the Book of Mormon. (You
> may have read it already. If so, I invite you to read it again with
> the same approach that I promise to take to your book.)
> In peace,
> Tracy Hall
> hthalljr'gmail'com
On Wed, 01 Jun 2005 22:16:35 EDT, in message
<7_tne.17982$Ib.14073@trndny03>, you responded:
http://tinyurl.com/7vm2r
[snip]
> You and everyone else who stubbornly clings to the
> false teachings of LDS are condemning yourselves
> to eternal damnation.
[snip]
> You are no Christian, so what right do you have to be
> called my 'brother'?
[snip]
> I wish I could believe that you would do this sincerely! But since
> there can be nothing sincere in your claim to be 'Christian', and
> you have to drop this self-deception before you have a chance of
> understanding the book I would recommend, I cannot believe you would
> do this sincerely.
> But the book I would have recommended is much smaller than you
> feared, and easy to get. It is "Beginning to Pray" by Anthony
> Bloom, available from Amazon for $7.95.
On Tue, 14 Jun 2005 07:54:44 EDT, in message
<8Azre.2570$kj5.309@trnddc03>, I responded:
http://tinyurl.com/dwton
[snip]
> I apologize for the long delay in responding. I was counting to ten
> and couldn't get past 9.99999 . .
> thank you, Matthew, sincerely, for your recommendation. I have
> ordered the book, shall read it prayerfully, as promised, and shall
> respond in private with my impressions.
> I invite you, in turn, to prayerfully contemplate the last written
> words of Nephi, who saw us all in vision and loved us with the pure
> love of Christ. The Spirit of the Lord carried these words into my
> heart about 44 years ago, when I was about 15. I pray that the Spirit
> of the Lord will also carry them into your heart.
> "And now, my beloved brethren, and also Jew, and all ye ends of the
> earth, hearken unto these words and believe in Christ; and if ye
> believe not in these words believe in Christ. And if ye shall believe
> in Christ ye will believe in these words, for they are the words of
> Christ, and he hath given them unto me; and they teach all men that
> they should do good.
> "And if they are not the words of Christ, judge ye-for Christ will
> show unto you, with power and great glory, that they are his words, at
> the last day; and you and I shall stand face to face before his bar;
> and ye shall know that I have been commanded of him to write these
> things, notwithstanding my weakness.
> "And I pray the Father in the name of Christ that many of us, if not
> all, may be saved in his kingdom at that great and last day.
> "And now, my beloved brethren, all those who are of the house of
> Israel, and all ye ends of the earth, I speak unto you as the voice of
> one crying from the dust: Farewell until that great day shall come.
> "And you that will not partake of the goodness of God, and respect the
> words of the Jews, and also my words, and the words which shall proceed
> forth out of the mouth of the Lamb of God, behold, I bid you an
> everlasting farewell, for these words shall condemn you at the last
> day.
> "For what I seal on earth, shall be brought against you at the
> judgment bar; for thus hath the Lord commanded me, and I must obey.
> Amen."
http://scriptures.lds.org/2_ne/33/10-15#10
Tracy Hall
hthalljr'gmail'com
So here, at last, is the letter that I have thrice attempted to send.
I sincerely hope that you will find nothing offensive herein.
From: Tracy Hall <hthalljr'gmail'com>
To: matthew_member'newsguy.com
Date: Jul 10, 2005 10:05 PM
Subject: Beginning to Pray
Dear Matthew,
I have nearly completed my second reading of Anthony Bloom's "Beginning
to Pray." Thank you for introducing me to this lovely book.
Metropolitan Bloom was clearly a man of God, and I am sure that his
writings have blessed the lives of many. His words have given me much
cause for introspection and have genuinely helped me with my prayers.
I admit that the fact that Bloom studied chemistry and physics in
college helped me to identify with him as a "kindred spirit." (I
pretend to be a chemist.)
I just now attempted, for a mere six minutes, to "stop time" ("managing
time," p. 88, Paulist Press paperback edition) and found that I was
indeed able to break a few of the tentacles that bind me to the
external world. In that brief meditation and prayer I felt that I drew
a bit closer to God.
This evening I came across Bloom's essay "On Death."
http://www.sourozh.org/sermons/on_death.htm
I was moved by the entire essay, and by these words in particular:
"The injunction 'be mindful of death' is not a call to live with a
sense of terror in the constant awareness that death is to overtake us
and that we are to perish utterly with all that we have stood for. It
means rather: 'be aware of the fact that what you are saying now, doing
now, hearing, enduring or receiving now may be the last event or
experience of your present life'. In which case it must be a crowning,
not a defeat; a summit, not a trough. If only we realized whenever
confronted with a person that this might be the last moment either of
his life or ours, we would be much more intense, more much attentive to
the words we speak and the things we do.
"There is a Russian children's story in which a wise man is asked three
questions: What is the most important moment in life? What is the most
important action in life? And who is the most important person? As in
all such stories, he seeks everywhere for an answer and finds none.
Finally he meets a peasant girl who is surprised that he should even
ask. 'The most important moment in life is the present - it is the only
one we have, for the past is gone, the future not yet here. The most
important action in this present is to do the right thing. And the most
important person in life is the person who is with you at this present
moment and for whom you can either do the right thing or the wrong'.
That is precisely what is meant by mindfulness of death."
What inspired words of wisdom! I was moved by how he taught himself
not to worry about the patients waiting outside, but to focus his
entire attention on the patient before him (p. 88). My personal
physician treats me that way. It is a rare gift.
Whether or not I die before I wake, I pray that these possible "last
words" will have been words of sincerity and love, and that God will
richly bless my brother, Matthew Johnson, to whom they are addressed.
Sincere best wishes,
Tracy Hall
Provo Canyon, UT
.
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