Thoughts and stories, by Pal

  I got this a week or so ago.  I really enjoyed reading it! Why a Baptist reverend says ‘Come, Come, Ye Saints’ embodies ‘the struggle of the human family’ by LDS Living  | Aug. 19, 2021 In a new video published by the Church’s newsroom, Elder Jack N. Gerard, a General Authority Seventy, sits down with Rev. Amos C. Brown of the Third Baptist Church of San Francisco. “We have not mastered that pronoun, ‘We,’” Rev. Brown tells Elder Gerard in the video. “We are family. We came from one Creator.”  Elder Gerard asks Rev. Brown about his love for the Latter-day Saint hymn “Come, Come, Ye Saints” to which Rev. Brown explained that he first heard the hymn 50 years ago during the Tabernacle Choir’s weekly broadcast.  “That hymn embodies a statement of the struggle of the human family,” Rev. Brown says. “The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints went through struggle. Your congregation did not rest in the ruins of oppression. It did not just survive. It struggled ...

How We Can Dispel Mental Illness Myths + The Story Behind the "Mental Health Hymn" by Jane Clayson Johnson, excerpted from "Silent Souls Weeping: Depression—Sharing Stories, Finding Hope"  | Jan. 11, 2019 Makes You Think This story originally appeared in the  January/February 2019 issue  of  LDS Living  magazine . Abraham Lincoln, arguably one of the most influential men of the 19th century, experienced several documented periods of deep depression. At one point, he wrote to a friend: “I am now the most miserable man living. If what I feel were equally distributed to the whole human family, there would not be one cheerful face on earth. Whether I shall ever be better, I cannot tell; I awfully forbode I shall not.  To remain as I am is impossible.”  I can’t think of a better way to describe how I felt during the worst of my own depression. Thankfully, I no longer feel this way. But I understand—the experience of de...

I learned many important lessons in life from my dear mother, Ruth Allen Miles.  I've mentioned her in here before, and will often I think.  The lesson which I will talk about, I quote from our life story book, page 343: ON ANGER MANAGEMENT: When I was about in the 7th grade, when our family home was still a basement, I remember some Saturday, Mom had left me in charge of my two sisters while she was gone.  I was to see they did their jobs.  I don't remember who came , or what I did or said, but I guess I was quite rude to one of Vina's friends.  When Mom got home, Vina told her of what I'd done, and Mom said, "Pal, why did you act like that?"  I replied, "I was so angry I didn't know what I was doing."  Mother just looked at me thoughtfully for a moment, and then said, "Pal, that is how people commit murder!"  I never forgot that, and have tried hard to control my anger since then.  That is another strong lesson I learned from my m...