Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints<\/a>, since he\u2019s a graduate of the BYU Law School \u2014 who has been indicted and arrested on charges of having swindled as much as fifteen million dollars from his clients over the past few years.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I\u2019m not pronouncing him guilty; he hasn\u2019t been tried yet, and I know little more about the case than the headline. \u00a0But, if the accusations are true, he wouldn\u2019t be the first once good person lured astray by the siren call of quick wealth or infidelity or power or eminence.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
One of the men I home-taught years ago spent a considerable portion\u00a0of our visits lamenting his own fall from grace, which came at first by almost imperceptibly small increments and which culminated in criminal charges. \u00a0He couldn\u2019t believe, he told me, that he\u2019d been so stupid and so weak as to, effectively, cast aside his genuine beliefs. \u00a0But he had done just that. \u00a0And my assignment to him came to an end when he was convicted and sent to the state penitentiary. \u00a0(That\u2019s not very good advertising, perhaps, for my skills as a home teacher.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
It doesn\u2019t hurt, occasionally, to ask yourself what you would like to be remembered for, what you like to have (truthfully) said at your funeral, what your children and grandchildren and neighbors will remember about you.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
They probably won\u2019t lay a lot of stress on our awards or the gazillions that we earned or on the beautiful house and cars that we\u2019re leaving behind. \u00a0(Let\u2019s hope that they aren\u2019t obliged to downplay our misdeeds and betrayals.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
And the next question, plainly, is whether you\u2019re doing the right things now, taking the right steps now, to be remembered as you would like<\/em> to be remembered, to leave the mark that you most want to leave.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
Edwin Q. Cannon had served as a bishop before he was my president in the Switzerland Z\u00fcrich Mission \u2014 which, in those days, was responsible not only for German-speaking Switzerland but for Church units in North Africa, Greece, Israel, the Arab and Persian Middle East, and Afghanistan. \u00a0(He had to visit those branches\u00a0each quarter.) \u00a0He told me, not terribly long before he was released, that he was looking\u00a0forward to relaxing for a while on his ranch in Wyoming. \u00a0But then his brother was called as a mission president, and he was obliged to reenter the family business. \u00a0And then his wife, Janath Russell Cannon, was called into the General Relief Society presidency and he was called to serve in the International Mission presidency. \u00a0And then they were called to open missionary work in Ghana and Nigeria. \u00a0And then they were called to direct the Nauvoo Visitors Center. \u00a0And then he was called as the interim president of the Germany Hamburg Mission while its president re-opened missionary work in East Germany. \u00a0And then they were called to preside over the Frankfurt Germany Temple. \u00a0And on and on. \u00a0(I\u2019m sure I\u2019ve forgotten some assignments.)<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
They were bright \u2014 they had met while she was a student at Wellesley and he was earning an MBA at Harvard \u2014 but, more than that, they were faithful, devoted, and two of the kindest people I\u2019ve ever known. \u00a0In his final remarks in Z\u00fcrich before he returned to the United States, President Cannon said that, if nothing else, he wanted the Swiss\u00a0to remember that he had loved<\/em> them. \u00a0And, surely, that was one of the most obvious and noteworthy things about him. \u00a0About them<\/em>.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I stupidly recounted their story once in a setting where certain\u00a0critics of the Church were vocal and active. \u00a0Those critics pounced. \u00a0The Church had shamefully exploited<\/em> the Cannons, they said.<\/p>\n\u00a0<\/p>\n
I saw it differently, and I know that the Cannons had seen it differently, as well. \u00a0And I thought how much better it would be to have been loved and to be mourned by hundreds if not thousands of people in North America, Europe, Africa, and the Middle East than to die as a cynical, sneering nay-sayer.<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\u00a0 \u00a0 In ancient Rome, victorious generals were given a \u201ctriumph\u201d or parade when they returned from battle. \u00a0(You can watch a Hollywood recreation of one in the classic 1959 film\u00a0Ben-Hur.) \u00a0They would display the spoils they had looted\u00a0and show off some of the more prominent captives they had seized (e.g., the captured Syrian queen […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1019,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39109","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
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