I was very interested to read the Church’s statement on what members could do to help mitigate the tragedy in Haiti. 

“Money is not the only need in Haiti. People are frightened, bewildered, and wholly uncertain about their future. In addition to what people can do in helping with food, water and shelter, there needs to be a calming influence over that troubled nation. We invite our people everywhere to supplicate God for a spirit of calm and peace among the people as urgent aid and reconstruction efforts continue” (lds.org/Newsroom 22 January)

The only balm for disaster in our lives is the Spirit.  I think of those patient, stunned children lying in the road in Haiti, too ill and dehydrated even to move.  I know they are traumatized, but I also know that they are not forgotten.  The Light of Christ is within them, and should they die from this horrendous event, they will be clasped in the arms of their Savior and know more love than they ever thought possible.

How can we apply this to our own, equally fragile lives?  Should we fear?  Should we be anxious?  The answer comes in the above scripture from the Lord to Oliver Cowdery.
Fear, doubt, sin, and pride .are the greatest stumbling blocks to faith.  So, as part of following the standard advice, “If ye are prepared, ye shall not fear,” we need to concentrate not only on disaster preparedness, but most importantly on spiritual preparedness. 

It is past time that we set our spiritual houses in order.  For many years, I was beset by fear and anxiety that totally crippled me, and prevented me from gaining the faith I needed to be healed from a long illness. I had repented and continued to repent from every sin I could think of, and my illness had humbled me to the dust, but I held on to my fears.  I could not give them up.   However. the more I came to understand the atonement, the more I realized that to “look to me in all things” meant that we had to develop trust.  We aren’t looking to Him in all things if we are concentrating on our checkbooks, our children’s faults, the news of the world.  Looking to him in all things means literally that.  It is a form of consecration. Consecration of our hearts, souls, and minds, so that we are conditioned to pray each day about all our fears, worries, and concerns and lay them all on the altar, summoning the faith in the atonement to know that “I can do all things through Jesus Christ which strengthened me.”  If we truly take this as our watchword, we will have the faith necessary to feel the peace of the Spirit, and will be enabled through the grace of the atonement of our Elder Brother to endure what must be endured, and to do what must be done.

I learned this lesson in a very dramatic fashion.  As soon as I finally understood the reality of grace to help me trust my Savior in all things, I put my whole life’s worth of worries and fears on the altar.   I felt them physically leave my body.  My chest was no longer constricted.  My breaths were no longer shallow.  And then, within the week, the new medication that dramatically healed me was found and administered to me by my doctor.

A habit of a lifetime of worry cannot be easily overcome, so I spend many hours in the Celestial Room, trying to be very quiet in my heart and soul so that I can identify new worries and give them to the Lord.  At the same time, I often receive instruction.  But, always I leave with the warmth of the Spirit comforting me, validating in my mind and heart that no matter how things appear to me, the Lord of the Universe is in control.  I leave my doubt and fear at the doors of the temple, and strengthened beyond my own capacity, go out into the world and do what is requisite for the mission and responsibilities the Lord has given me.

It is no news that ever since Harry Potter, fantasy books have been in high demand. New authors are sprouting up all the time. Adults are even reading children’s fantasy books, and the adult fantasy market is burgeoning. Why?

Obviously, people are looking for escape from the world they live in and are looking for alternate realities. What characterizes these realities? Almost all of them have a clearly defined sense of good and evil—something that is missing in today’s society. Good and evil still exist, of course, but they are not acknowledged. In the fantasy world, there is no such thing as political correctness!

People are hungry for heroes. So often fantasy has "Christ figures"—a character who will perform an act that will set the fictional universe to rights. By the number of people who crave these stories, it is quite obvious that we possess an internal archetype that knows good and evil and believes in the possibility of redemption. So, while politicians and media pundits are trying to eradicate a belief in absolutes, people are buying more and more books that deal in absolutes.

If the world we live in today were a fantasy, how would things be made right? It is certainly possible that an author would allow things to play out until they became much worse. Until we were on the brink of total annihilation. Then there would be an apocalyptic ending, where the evil are destroyed and the good redeemed.

My novel, The Last Waltz, (http://last-waltz.com) tells the first half of this story, the decline and fall of Austria as a world power that eventually embraces fascism. Something that isn’t very well understood is that Hitler was seen as the hero of the fantasy that all could be restored to rights. Only a very slim part of society saw Hitler for what he really was. Watching the film "Triumph of the Will" reminds me of a scene in Star Wars where the evil Emperor’s storm troopers are marching on display. It is indeed chilling, and one can see how so many people were deceived by its pageantry.

Germany and Austria’s intellectuals, who might have saved the day, had given up on God and morality and embraced decadence as a way of life. After the horror of World War I, they could no longer believe in the code of ethics that had guided Europe for so many hundreds of years.

This disenchantment with the past also gave rise to socialism as an answer: let’s demolish the class system and nationalism altogether. The socialists represented an alternative to fascism that was very attractive to many intellectuals, including Americans who fought with the Communists in the Spanish Civil War in the early ‘thirties.

So history tells us that we must be careful when we choose our heroes. And the present day preoccupation with fantasy tells us that we must be careful not to confuse fantasy with reality. If "thinkers" give up on the real world, who will save it?

This is going to be a different kind of post.  I apologize beforehand if it offends anyone.  However, the massive good will and spirit we felt in the Firenzi Second Branch this morning, was thoroughly bludgeoned by reading an article by my favorite columnist, Charles Krauthammer called “Decline is a Choice.”  Being “out of the world” these few days has been heady and exciting, however Krauthammer’s words recalled me to the state of things in my own coutry.  Decline of power may be inevitable (though Krauthammer says it isn’t, despite our present direction), but what I lament is the moral decline.  I am glad most WWII vets are dead or dying so that they don’t know the hell that they trudged through so heroically was “morally wrong.”  I hope that anyone who doesn’t believe evil exists, will take a refresher course and read The Last Waltz.  Fascism was born in a world where people had given up on morals, largely because of the waste of life that was World War I.  Germany’s revenge focused on the Jews and the Slavs as their worst enemies.  We know about the wholesale slaughter and the death camps.  They were unconscionable.

But what about our own society?  What have unborn fetuses ever done to us?  Surely, in all the world, they are the most innocent of beings.  Yet they are being murdered by the millions.  This is not a political choice, it’s a moral choice, and that’s what worries me about America.

The only choice we have really is to change our own hearts to be submissive to Christ, and to preach this unpopular doctrine everywhere we can.  We must be courageous. We need not be angry about political misdeeds, and resigned to our own downfall.  We must continue to do good, to be righteous, not to be ashamed of our Savior, even if it is “politcally incorrect.”

Those of us who are writers are in a unique position to teach truth.  And all truth is centered in Jesus Christ.  Let’s not lose our perspective in this climate of rage and fear.  Let’s take a leaf from our prophet’s book and “be of good cheer,” spreading that cheer as broadly as we can.

It has been many generations since we, as a Church, have needed the kind of individual relationship with the Lord that we need now.  Each of us must internalize guidance from the Spirit to keep us optimistic and headed in the right direction to build the Kingdom. This is a critical time.   There is something required of each of us.  That something can most often be found as we fight to overcome trials and in doing so forge the faith that the pioneers had.  Our true identities do not become clear while we are living a life of ease.  They only become clear when our way has become so difficult that we must take the Savior’s hand and follow him through the rocky terrain.  The feel of our hand in His, the presence of Him in our lives, will sanctify us.  If we stay true to the covenants we have made to sacrifice and consecrate, we will find that we have power for good that we never dreamed of.

Nephi said, speaking of our day: "And I, Nephi, beheld the power of the Lamb of God that it descended upon the saints of the church of the Lamb, and upon the covenant  people of the Lord, who were scattered upon all the face of the earth; and they were armed with righteousness and with the power of God in great glory." (1 Nephi 14:14)  Where do we become the "covenant people of the Lord?"  In the temples.  So as riots rage, and tempests storm upon the wicked, if we are faithful temple-goers, we will not only be spared, but even t in our scattered state we  will be armed with righteousness and with the Power of God in great glory."

In the temples.  So as riots rage, and tempests storm upon the wicked, if we are faithful temple-goers, we will not only be spared, but even t in our scattered state we  will be armed with righteousness and with the Power of God in great glory."

The most important thing I did today was not to fear and tremble.  The most important thing I did today was to take the sacrament and remember my covenants.

[I had to write an article for a magazine for my SEO tasks, and this is what happened.  Thought I would share it with you, after adding the last two paragraphs]

I grew up on a diet of historical novels, mostly the romantic with a small r kind. However, when I graduated to the classics, I knew I had found my real genre. "I was born in the wrong era," I thought.

And then, I became a writer, and I entered an historical era of my dreams, tip-toeing softly, gathering atmosphere, facts, foods, language—a zeigeist entirely different from my own pedestrian existence. And, still I didn’t get it right. It wasn’t until I studied why those classic novels were great that I could dare to presume to publish The Last Waltz.

Tolstoy, Hugo, Dostoevsky, Gaskill, Bronte, Austen—what made them so great that they still continue to be relevant, dramatized, and studied? I truly believe the answer is that they wrote of redemption of character. The authors believed in a universe where the hard questions of life had answers. They believed in right and wrong.

Margaret Hale, of Gaskill’s North and South, is my favorite heroine. Up against the hard questions posed by the English Industrial Revolution—class barriers, poverty, and greed—she managed to redeem all those in her small circle of existence with her love and her righteous principles. Her influence traveled beyond her circle and redeemed strategic characters in an industrial town in Victorian England. This was not a fairy tale. It was very real, because it depicted love as it really is—a devotion that acknowledges flaws, but works past them, appealing to the innate goodness of man. Elizabeth Gaskill believed in innate goodness, as did Tolstoy, Hugo, Bronte, etc.

Why is it that the current young generation is turning to fantasy literature in overwhelming numbers? Because fantasy worlds are built on the existence of good and evil. Until this age of relativism, that was the nature of art. And deep within, we still know this.

World renowned critic, John Gardner, explains this far more eloquently than I, in speaking of my favorite author and his work. "Leo Tolstoy knew about the universe of despair and endured a perhaps similar spiritual crisis [to that of Sartre], a crisis certainly profound and all-transforming. He came out of it not with a theory that every man should make up his own rules, asserting values for all men for all time, but with a theory of submission, a theory which equally emphasized freedom but argued that what a man ought to do with his freedom is be quiet, look and listen, try to feel out in his heart and bones what God requires of him—as Levin does in Anna Karenina, or Pierre in War and Peace."(Gardner, John, On Moral Fiction, Basic Books, Inc.: New York, p. 25)

Gardner further asserts that great art always builds, seeking to improve life, not debase it.

Why was Les Miserables one of the greatest stage productions of the modern era? Because it was heroic. It made us believe and embrace the idea that man could change, could be redeemed, could love enough to want to sacrifice, even in a time of great blackness and despair. Though the mid-nineteenth century French revolution failed, Valjean was victorious in his heart and soul.

So when I wanted to write a novel about the triumph of the soul in dark times, I took a lesson from the Greats. I set it in the past, where it would not be unfashionable. Is it too late for us? Genre fiction still deals with good and evil. Should not literary fiction take a lesson from the popularity of such books, possibly even finding a mission there?

Certainly, we as LDS authors and readers should. Remember the Orson F. Whitney prophesy: "We shall yet have Miltons and Shakespeares of our own. God’s ammunition is not exhausted. His highest spirits are held in reserve for the latter times. In God’s name and by His help we will build up a literature whose tops will touch the heaven, though its foundation may now be low on the earth." ("The Arts and the Spirit of the Lord," Boyd K. Packer, Ensign, 1976.)

Inspired by this quote, the LDStorymakers have instituted the Whitney Awards for excellence in fiction. Why not support those LDS writers most in keeping with this revelation by going to http://www.whitneyawards.com and nominating your favorite books?

By G.G. Vandagriff

On this fourth of July, our country is once again in its history at a precarious crossroads.  One of the many themes in my recently published novel, The Last Waltz, is how democracy was lost in Austria.  The Austrians tried to make a democracy out of imperial remnants, while we Americans have made it out of whole cloth.

In Austria, they were used to having a “divinely appointed” emperor who controlled absolutely.  In America, our founders took care to specify God as our king, and made the people free to elect their own rulers, who would only rule under a complicated system of checks and balances.

As America has secularized, most people don’t go to God anymore to work out their problems.  They expect the government to do it, to make things right.  And so they have elected representatives that believe in big government.  When one party rules the senate, the house, the presidency, and the judiciary, we have what is almost a dictatorship, whether it be from the right or from the left.  Everything depends on the righteousness and wisdom of those in power.  But when these people have divorced themselves from the principles of the founding fathers, then they take the constitution hostage.  This is the same road the European nations have traveled.  They are all secular socialist countries.

We started out with so much wisdom on that Fourth of July long ago.  Let us return to the principles that made our nation great.  Let your voices be heard in favor of true democratic principles.

This is an article that I wrote for Meridian this week.  It received such a good response from it, I thought I would share it on my blog.

Many years ago, when I was working on one of the drafts of The Last Waltz, and also suffering from bi-polar disorder, I had an experience that changed my life. I wish to share it in hopes that whomever needs to hear it will feel its calming truth.

I was writing Part II of my novel which takes place during the worst of the trench-slaughter of World War I. One of my characters dies at the battle of Verdun. He is a German, one of 336,000 to die in that horrible battle. Anyone who has studied that war knows that such a death was futile, useless, and accomplished nothing. As I was doing the laundry one particular day, my heart was so heavy that my movements were all slow and dull. All I could think of were the millions of men who perished in that war in the midst of the worst sort of hell I could imagine. Then, into my heart came the words, "You cannot carry this, G.G. You were never meant to carry it. There was only One who could, and He has already done it."

A weight lifted from me, and I took a deep breath. Then, another message came, "Death is not the ultimate tragedy. The ultimate tragedy is not doing what you were born to do."

I do not claim to be a prophet. Perhaps this message was meant only for me. However, the more I thought about it, the greater significance it had for me. As has been said so often by so many, this life is the test, not the reward. When we lived with our Heavenly Father, I think He knew us as well, or perhaps better than our earthly fathers do. I know, from blessings given by priesthood authority, that He gave me a mission to perform for Him on earth. I do not know for certain, but I imagine every one of us had the same experience. Looking at your life through that lens, it should become clear, when the time is right, just what your loving Father expected you to accomplish. Perhaps it was to be the first member in your family, like my husband. Perhaps it was to stop a chain of negative behavior that goes back generations. Perhaps it was to teach, to train, to witness, to serve, to sing, to write music, to dance, to invent . . . the list is endless.

When we are living hand in hand with our Savior and Father in Heaven, doors will open so we can accomplish what needs to be done. Our greatest enemy will be self-doubt, which can crumble faith faster than anything.

My husband continually reminds me that the test in this life is not whether we succeed or fail, but whether we are righteous or unrighteous. If we concentrate on being personally righteous, we will not take a wrong turning. We will not "miss" performing what it is we were sent here to do. The Lord holds each of us in the palm of His hand. Even if we do not know where we are going, we can trust that He does. "Christ knows the way out and He knows the way up," Elder Holland told us in his 2006 Conference Address, "Broken Things to Mend."

When people ask me if I am bitter that the management of my bi-polar disorder took twenty-five years to accomplish, I can honestly reply: "No. Because I did what I came on earth to do." Then I quote D&C 132: 24: "For this is life eternal to know God and Jesus Christ, whom he has sent." Any road that takes us to that destination is the road we were meant to take.