On Hearing The Lord’s Voice In A World Of Noise And Clamor

kfjskja;afuwoufoehiueaijeni — All three members of the Trinity are represented in Guido Reni, “La Trinità” (ca. 1625-1626; Rome, Chiesa della Trinità dei Pellegrini)
Wikimedia Commons public domain image

This entry was newly posted today on the blog of the Interpreter Foundation: “Hearing the Voice of the Lord in the Mind: Additional Testimonies” (Part Seven of a Series Compiled by Dennis B. Horne):

See the Introductory blog (#1) for explanation about this series on hearing the voice of the Lord in the mind. The below are additional accounts shared by those who have experienced this spiritual gift and have thereby been able to bless and enlighten others. Most of these are self-explanatory, but if desired readers wishing further context can (in most cases) go to the original source:

"Triumph of the Will" poster — Hitler personally chose the title “Triumph des Willens” (“Triumph of the Will” for the classic 1935 Nazi propaganda film of that name by Leni Riefenstahl, which famously demonstrates the power of the art of film to sway large audiences — for ill, as well as for good.
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

“A new film about missionaries’ daring WWII escape is coming—read 3 miracles behind the movie” Actually, the movie isn’t coming any more. It’s arrived. And with some friends, my wife and I plan to see it on Monday evening.

This seems to me a fairly balanced discussion: “Mormonism is still growing, but slowly: There’s something for everyone to cheer — or boo — in the most recent data on the LDS church.” We’re not imploding, contrary to the fevered fantasies of some folks online, and we’re not fading away. On the other hand, we’re in no position to be self-satisfied and complacent.

Laser stuff — An only slightly relevant public domain laser illustration from Wikimedia Commons

As I write, news is coming in of a knife attack in the Westfield Bondi Junction Shopping Centre, near Sydney and just inland from the famous Bondi Beach, that has left seven dead — including the wielder of the knife. He was apparently shot by a policewoman whom he was threatening to stab.

With members of our tour group, my wife and I were there walking along Bondi Beach just a few weeks ago. I don’t think that we saw the mall, but we can’t have been very far from it. That fact brings the news oddly home, just a bit. And one of those murdered in the shopping mall was the daughter of a very famous and very wealthy Australian entrepreneur — which goes to show, among other things, that nobody is ever altogether safe from the evils and vicissitudes of the world in which we live.

Also in the news, as I write: Scores of Iranian drones have been launched at Israel. They seem to have done little damage, but not from want of ambition. According to a spokesman for the Israeli Defense Forces, the “vast majority” of them were apparently destroyed before they managed to land.

The Iranian attack has been expected for days, although what precise form it would take was unknown. It comes in response to an apparent Israeli airstrike — Israel hasn’t claimed responsibility for it — on the Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, Syria. The apparent Israeli attack killed at least seven officials (including Mohammed Reza Zahedi, a top commander in Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards [IRGC], and senior commander Mohammad Hadi Haji Rahimi) as well as at least six Syrian civilians. And attacks on diplomatic buildings violate not only international law but age-old international custom. Of course, Mr. Zahedi and Mr. Rahimi probably weren’t in Damascus merely on vacation. They were very likely planning mischief.

And, in other heartwarming news, a fourteen-year-old Israeli boy who has been missing has now been found dead, and Israeli settlers have attacked the villages of Duma, Beitin, Deir Dibwan, and al-Mughayyir in retaliation.

Meanwhile, the pleasantries in Gaza continue.

I’ve found myself humming the “Merry Minuet” off and on all day. My brother had a vinyl album of the Kingston Trio, live at San Francisco’s “Hungry I,” and the “Merry Minuet” was one of the tracks on that album. It was love at first hearing. In fact, years later, when I was teaching at BYU’s Jerusalem Center for Near Eastern Studies and the academic year was drawing to its close, the students put on a talent show. My family and I performed the “Merry Minuet” as our contribution:

They’re rioting in Africa. They’re starving in Spain.There’s hurricanes in Florida and Texas needs rain.

The whole world is festering with unhappy souls.The French hate the Germans. The Germans hate the Poles.

Italians hate Yugoslavs. South Africans hate the Dutch.And I don’t like anybody very much!

But we can be tranquil and thankful and proudFor man’s been endowed with a mushroom shaped cloud.

And we know for certain that, some lovely day.Someone will set the spark off and we will all be blown away.

They’re rioting in Africa. There’s strife in Iran.What nature doesn’t do to us will be done by our fellow man.

Given such news, it’s impossible not to think of the spirit that seeks to reign with blood and horror on this earth. It’s also very difficult not to be reminded of G. K. Chesterton’s famous quip, in his classic book Orthodoxy, that that the doctrine of original sin is “the only part of Christian theology which can really be proved.”

A 2011 eruption at Mt. Etna — The entrance to Hell? Or merely the Utah state line?
(Wikimedia Commons public domain photo)

But I don’t want to be a Pollyanna, or to pretend that the world is best seen through rose-colored glasses. There are actual evils in this life, too, as illustrated (for example) in this quartet of chilling reports that have been drawn from the Christopher Hitchens Memorial “How Religion Poisons Everything” File™:

In a properly run state, of course — say, for example, in the late Enver Hoxha’s People’s Republic of Albania — such evils would never be permitted.