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...

                                   This is a very good article! What Does it Mean to Be a Witness? By  Daniel C. Peterson  · August 17, 2022 To read more from Daniel, visit his blog:  Sic Et Non . We tend to make more progress, spiritually, in times of stress, sorrow, sadness, opposition, and difficulty than in times of ease.  It’s rather like going to the gym, I suppose; exercise with fifty-pound weights builds more strength than does working out with half-pound weights.  Or, as the great thirteenth-century Muslim poet and mystic Jalal al-Din Rumi put it, “The wound is the place where the Light enters you.” That doesn’t mean that we enjoy it.  And it doesn’t always mean that, while it’s happening to us, we can see good in it.  Sometimes, it’s just horrible. From time to time, I feel moved to post this item, which I first wrote many years ago.  I feel impress...

                    Where can you find news you can trust?    False Narratives: “The Lies We Tell Ourselves”  By  United Families International  · April 27, 2022 The following was contributed by Shannon Wixom. Key Take Aways: Modern-day culture and media have perfected the art of presenting opinions and falsehoods as facts. This is often accomplished via “false narratives.” Today’s headlines are packed with “false narratives” on topics like abortion, LGBT rights, violence against women, and causes of poverty,  False narratives begin with the acceptance of a false premise. They can be difficult to spot, but don’t be fooled! ­­­­­­­­­­­­­­­_________________________ Modern-day culture and media have perfected the art of presenting opinions and falsehoods as facts. Social science refers to this phenomenon as “false narrative.”  A “false narrative” is a version of an issue or an event that, while partly true...

  The Parable of the Purple Pig: What Have you Stopped Noticing? By  Joni Hilton  · January 26, 2022 In many ways, life is like The Parable of the Purple Pig. In this story, a man who owns a gas station in the Midwest comes across a garage sale in a nearby state, where they’re selling a sculpture of a pig. Nearly twice the size of a real one, the man thinks it would be a hilarious prank to buy it and put it in a friend’s pig farm. He loads it into his pickup truck. But on the way home, he gets an even better idea. He’ll spray paint the whole thing purple and put it in front of his gas station. It will draw attention, maybe increase business. So, he does this. Only people find it an eyesore. Opinion letters appear in the local paper. The local radio station bemoans his poor taste. Disgruntled drivers tell him to take it down. This offends him and he stubbornly vows to keep it up as long as he’s alive, by golly. The ruckus finally dies down as people realize it’s simply goi...