Thoughts and stories, by Pal

  What are the Characteristics of Spirit?  By  Larry Barkdull  · August 16, 2022 Before he died, Larry Barkdull had written a substantial part of an unfinished manuscript  about the extraordinary power of faith,  particularly as a power that causes things to happen. This is faith on a higher level than we usually practice and understand it. With the permission of his wife, Buffie, Meridian will be running an excerpt from this new book every week. See earlier articles in this series  HERE  and  HERE  and  HERE . Faith, light, truth, priesthood  and  power— can we not see that they are interdependent and likely components of the same intelligent spiritual substance?  Spirit  with its various parts, is the power of the Gods to bring things to pass and deliver astounding blessings. We read, for instance, that when  Spirit  functions as the light of Christ, it becomes the agent of power for the Holy Gho...

  Dealing with the Collateral Damage of Divorce   By  Jeff Teichert  · May 31, 2022 As you may know by now, we released our long-awaited book, “Intentional Courtship: a Mid-Singles Guide to Peace, Progress, and Pairing up in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints,” on November 5 th  2021, just over six months ago. Intentional Courtship contains a lot of counsel and information about coping with loss and recovery from pain and trauma through the power of intention. One of the most unanticipated and difficult consequences of divorce is the impact it has on our relationships with in-laws and mutual friends. Some families and friends handle this well, but most do not. In the church, we have such a dim view of divorce that we tend to subconsciously believe that giving compassion or support to someone getting divorced is condoning divorce. Often this motivates people to stay away or to try to determine who was at fault in the divorce and then take the ot...