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Hymns of Inspiration
Recent and Upcoming Events
From the Mission Field
International Observances
Remember in your Prayers
Dedicated to Holiness
Blowin' in The Wind
Sunday School Notebook
The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff
Come
Now, and Let us Reason Together
Hymns of Inspiration
No strife shall rage
Nor hostile feuds disturb those peaceful years
To plowshares men shall beat their swords
To pruning hooks their spears
No longer host encount'ring host
Shall crowds of slain deplore
They'll hang the trumpet in the hall
And study war no more
Hymn 54 - Behold, the Mountain of the Lord - click
here to sing along at home!
(Hymns of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints)
Recent and Upcoming Events
A new cyber home for MESJ
MESJ is in the process of switching to a new website provider.
After years of using webspace kindly provided at no charge by friends
of MESJ, the time had come to make a change. As MESJ continues to grow
it becomes more important to fully control accessability to the MESJ site.
Our new webspace provider is Dreamhost and the service they provide comes
with additional email handling possibilities for MESJ.
MESJ wants to thank Stephen and Matthew Coles for so graciously allowing
us to use their webspace during the past years, James Tobler for brokering
that great deal, John-Charles Duffy for making good use of it, and our
New York chapter contact person Michael Shirts for initiating the transfer.
Our new homepage 'Are you answering the call?'
will be directing you to our new web space as soon as the transfer has
been completed. Stay tuned!
Local Chapters
To get an idea what's going on at the local chapters of MESJ
all across the United States, you may want to have a look at the online
MESJ Calendar of Local Events.
Upcoming events have been planned so far by our chapters in New York City
and Las Vegas, and more events will be added on the calendar as information
comes available.
If you live within the geographical boundaries of a local MESJ chapter,
please contact the local
contact person to offer support and to find out more about activities.
MESJ - Boston
The MESJ chapter in Boston, since May 2005, has her own Yahoo
message and discussion center.
MESJ - Los Angeles
MESJ Los Angeles, through her California-wide email list, requested
attention for this tragic event:
Mexico: Strikers shot during steel mill occupation
Police shot and killed two workers, another was crushed to death in a
melee, and over 40 others were wounded, most by gunshots, when authorities
launched an assault to expel striking workers occupying the SICARTSA steel
mill in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán, Mexico on April
20. Reports from the scene suggest that others may also have been killed
or may die from their wounds. Workers and townspeople retook the plant,
but were then besieged by the police. Parts of the plant have been taken
over by the Mexican Army and the Mexican Navy.
The new National Front for Union Unity and Autonomy (FNUAS) composed
of the UNT, the Mine Workers Union and others have called for the resignation
of the Mexican Secretary of Labor, Francisco Xavier Salazar, the impeachment
of President Vicente Fox Quezada, punishment of those who are guilty,
and recognition of the elected leader of the mine workers union.
The Frente Autentico del Trabajo (FAT) has requested that we circulate
this information as widely as possible and urgently request that letters
of protest be sent to the President of Mexico and Secretary of Labor.
- Send
a Message to Vicente Fox and Mexico’s Secretary of labor
MESJ and CrossLeft
MESJ is pleased to announce that as of May 2006, she is affiliated
with Crossleft - a strategy clearing house and meeting point for a great
number of major social justice organizations of a wide variety of religious
denominations. CrossLeft is a central hub for grassroots activism among
progressive Christians. They bring in news from other progressive Christian
sites, and all of their efforts are geared towards coordinating action,
educating the country, and providing a strategy for long-term change.
You''ll find more about our MESJ-CrossLeft partnership in: Quarterly
News, an intersection of social justice and progressive christianity.
Choose The Right: CrossLeft !
Becoming Anxiously Engaged
Anxiously Engaged invites you to become Anxiously Engaged!
Please feel free to submit material for our columns From the Mission
Field, Recent and Upcoming Events, and Come Now, and
Let Us Reason Together. In addition, if you know of local events
in your area that need our attention, please email
us and let us know.
From the Mission Field
In
this column we would like to hear from returned missionaries and from
parents from presently serving missionaries, sharing with us experiences
and impressions from the mission field.
Serving 'far and wide' missionaries have unique opportunities to learn
about social circumstances of people living in many different places around
the world. Whereas the spiritual and material are inseparably intertwined,
there is much to be learned about the everyday lives of the people they
care so much about.
What
is the relevance of having served a two-year mission to the lives of returned
missionaries?
A recent
article from The
Denver Post makes the point that serving 'far and wide' has consequences
for the lives of returned missionaries and for the world they live in:
"Over
the past several decades, the Mormon Church has sent thousands of Utahns
to Latin America on two-year missions to preach and proselytize, creating
strong links between the region and people who went on to become some
of the state's top policymakers.Utah Republican
Rep. Chris Cannon went on a mission in Guatemala in the 1970s. The state's
attorney general - who also has adopted two Mexican- American children
- spent two years in Peru."
Of course,
even if you don't become an attorney general, your mission could have
a definite impact on how you see the world around you. Missionaries often
witness extreme poverty and social injustice, the question is if these
experiences become irrelevant the moment a missionary comes home, or if
they leave enough of a lasting impresssion for a 'RM' to become involved
with, for example, MESJ - Mormons for Equality and Social Justice.
A missionary's
'homecoming' may create the impression that his or her mission is over,
however for many returned missionaries their mission in reality has only
just begun...
Anxiously Engaged welcomes submissions
from returned or presently serving missionaries!
Even if you served your mission many years ago, your observations of the
social circumstances of the people that you served, are likely to create
a greater awareness among us of social injustice.
International Observances
From our list
of international observances promoted by the United Nations: click
on each link for suggestions about how to commemorate the observance with
a brief family devotional (perhaps at the dinner table or before family
prayer).
June 04 International
Day of Innocent Children Victims of Aggression
June 05 World
Environment Day
June 17 World
Day to Combat Desertification and Drought
June 20 World
Refugee Day
June 23 United
Nations Public Service Day
June 26 International
Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking
June 26 International
Day in Support of Victims of Torture
and please remember these observances in your prayers (see the column
below)
Remember
in your Prayers
Give thanks for your family's safety.
Pray for victims of child abuse.
Pray that the day will come when children will be able to grow up in a
world without violence.
Pray especially for an end to the violence in Iraq and Darfur.
Give thanks for the world that our Heavenly Father created for His children.
Give thanks for the growing global awareness of the need to practice wise
stewardship.
Pray that societies worldwide will make protecting the environment a top
priority.
Pray that the Spirit will help experts find solutions for sustainable
development.
Commit before the Lord to make specific environmentally friendly changes
in the way you live.
Give thanks for living at a time when people have the knowledge and technology
to produce more food than ever before possible.
Pray for those who are directly threatened by desertification and drought.
Pray for solutions to the problems of desertification and climate change.
Give thanks for your home and for freedom from persecution.
Pray for those who are currently fleeing war or persecution.
Pray for refugees who are trying to build new lives for themselves outside
their home countries.
Give thanks for the public services you enjoy (water, electricity, roads,
police, etc.)
Give thanks for public servants who are truly dedicated to serving the
public.
Pray that public servants around the world will be blessed with wisdom
to solve the problems faced by their communities.
Give thanks for the Word of Wisdom.
Pray for people addicted to drugs, as well as for their families.
Pray for an end to the peer pressure and the harsh social realities that
contribute to many people beginning to use drugs.
Pray for the efforts of those who work to end drug trafficking and to
create a drug-free world.
Give thanks for the international laws that make torture illegal.
Pray that those laws will be respected and that torturers will be brought
to justice.
Pray for those who provide aid to torture victims and their families.
Pray that victims of torture will experience the Savior's healing power
in their lives.
St.George Utah Temple
Dedicated to Holiness
Latter-day Temples dot the globe in ever greater numbers, and MESJ
would like to reflect on their significance, specifically in regard to
what these holy edifices have been dedicated for in relation to an equitable,
just, peaceful and sustainable society. In our series 'Dedicated to Holiness'
we'll tour temples around the world, inspiring us to aspire to something
higher! This month's selection:
From the St.George,
Utah Temple Dedicatory Prayer:
"We dedicate and consecrate the foundation of this building upon
which it stands. Cause, O Lord, that it may not give way nor yield in
consequence of any destructive elements which may be in the soil, but
may the nature of those elements be changed so as to become strengthening
instead of weakening, that the same may always remain firm and sound."
A firm foundation indeed has the St.George Temple proven to be. After
temples built in Kirtland, Ohio and Nauvoo, Illinois, she was build and
dedicated even before the completion of the Salt Lake City Temple. Daniel
H. Wells, second counselor to pres. Brigham Young, in 1877 dedicated this
historic temple that is so characteristic for the town of St.George.
Daniel Wells, refering to 'destructive elements which may be in the soil'
of course knew nothing about nuclear science, nor about future developments
that would place the town of St.George in the prevailing wind pattern
surrounding the Nevada Test Site, and that her residents would be constantly
exposed to radioactive fallout from America's nuclear testing activities
conducted there. Subsequently residents in the Southern Utah area would
be called 'downwinders', a term that more than ever gets our attention,
as the Church recently made clear that she is about promoting the values
of the nuclear family, not about promoting the Mormon heartland as a dumping
ground for nuclear waste!
The church opposes moving and storing high-level nuclear waste near Salt
Lake City and may be equally opposed to similar plans at Yucca Mountain
near Las Vegas.
In 1981 the church succesfully opposed plans to place nuclear MX Missiles
in Utah and Nevada, calling such proposals: "ironic, and a denial
of the very essence of the gospel."
Scripture teaches us that we are stewards of the earth and its resources,
which should be used “with judgment, not to excess” (D&C
59:20).
Performing nuclear testing, attempts to station MX Missiles, and proposals
to store massive amounts of radioactive waste in the desert west of St.George,
all tesitfy of our complete lack of judgement, our excessive dependance
on unsustainable energy sources, as well as our unholy obsession with
security as a 'warlike people'.
Daniel Wells may have sensed that something could potentially change the
nature of the elements...
Blowin' in The Wind
Where have all the protest songs gone? Well, we're collecting them
in our MESJ Music Archive!
Nothing drives a point home better than a good old protest song, sung
from the heart with conviction.
Many protest songs are a little rough on the edges, evident for feelings
of frustration and indignation that are so often being denied expression
elsewhere. This month's selection:
Eve of Destruction
- (3.34 minutes) by Barry McGuire
This song was written in 1965 during the Vietnam conflict.
At the time 18 year-olds were not allowed to vote, but they could be drafted
to go fight for their country!
In 1971 the voting laws were changed and these days there's no longer
a military draft system in place, however in the present Iraq conflict
we once again witness the death of very young soldiers, often just out
of high school, carrying the burden of our inability to 'renounce war
and proclaim peace'...
Eve of Destruction also refers to our flirting with nuclear disaster.
It has been, and still is, unreasonable to expect the States of Nevada
and Utah to welcome nuclear missiles and radioactive waste in their backyards.
Neither State has a nuclear power plant, and the State of Utah has the
lowest military recruitment rate nationwide because missionaries serve
peaceful missions worldwide, sharing the gospel of the Prince of Peace.
Regarding the issue of nuclear missiles the First Presidency called the
proposal:
"ironic, and a denial of the very essence of that gospel".
The Doctrine & Covenants 59:20 point out that the earth and its resources
should be used “with judgment, not to excess” Our lack of
judgment has the potential to prematurely trigger an Eve of Destruction
before the Morning of the Resurrection...
John-Charles Duffy in: a
short introduction to the Book of Mormon:
"I worry at times that I may live to see my society self-destruct.
Near the end of the Book of Mormon, following the destruction of the Nephites,
Moroni warns latter-day readers against materialism (Mormon 8:35-41).
It's not hard for me to see the relevance of that warning. People in my
society aspire to an opulent lifestyle that could not possibly be sustained
if it were enjoyed by every person on earth. Even the life of moderate
luxury that people like me enjoy--my own car, hot running water, enough
electricity to run a household full of appliances, including the computer
I'm writing this on--even that life may not be environmentally sustainable.
We can't go on like this forever: in a big way, something has to change."
Sunday School Notebook
by Susan Morgan
Sunday School Notebook recognizes the importance of connecting spirituality
and social justice through the scriptures. Following the Gospel
Doctrine Lesson Schedule for each week, we encourage you to actively
participate in the class discussions.
The following are the scheduled reading assignments for the sunday school
this year, which may vary from ward to ward. Click on each assignment
to read the reflections from Susan Morgan.
Sunday School Notebook will continue to add commentary as new material
becomes available, so please come back and visit often!
Just click on the reading assignments below, to read Susan Morgan's commentary.
The Life and Times of Wilford Woodruff
by Robert Poort
Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Wilford Woodruff, is the seventh
in a series of books of the teachings of Presidents of the Church, used
for personal study and for Melchizedek Priesthood and Relief Society instruction
in church on the second and third Sundays . MESJ during 2006 will examine
the life and times of Wilford Woodruff in connection with social justice
issues each month in this online newsletter. This month in The Life and
Times of Wilford Woodruff:
Respect for the Working Man
President Woodruff was a hard worker, and not just intellectually, but
he especially loved manual labor, as Latter-Day Saint historian Andrew
Jenson recorded: (LDS Biographical Encyclopedia)
"His industry was so conspicious a part of his being that when, at
the age of ninety years, one of his grandsons excelled hin a very little
in hoeing some vegetables in the garden, he said with apparent humiliation:
'Well, it is the first time in my life that one of my children has ever
outdone me in hoeing.' "
And a contemporary of President Woodruff observed: "He loved work,
not alone for its own sake, but because it was associated with divine
command. Nor was it to him merely a means of getting on in the world,
of adding conveniences and comfort to his own life as well as to those
dependent upon him; to him it was a blessing, a privilege, an opportunity
which he always availed himself of whenever his calling would permit...To
sweat, was a divine command as much as to pray; and in his life he exemplified
in the highest degree that simple Christian life that makes for the physical,
mental, and moral well-being of man. He believed sincerely in the moral
supremacy of manual toil. He loved it and enjoyed it." (J.M.Tanner,
"Character Sketch" 1964)
Unfortunately many people no longer see manual labor as a divine command,
much less so as morally superior, on the contrary, society devaluates
the manual labor of working men and women.
Latter-day prophets admonish parents to be home enough to raise their
children in a responsible manner, something that becomes ever harder to
do, as manual labor is being marginalized, and often only labor unions
stand in the way of workers being exploited by those in control.
A quote from Mormons
speak out on Labor:
James W. Lucas & Warner P. Woodworth: "The practice of many Utah
firms which pay workers the federal minimum wage or other low compensation,
while legal, is not commensurate with Christian managerial actions....Giving
workers the lowest possible pay is not only immoral, but shortsighted."
President Woodruff would probably shake his head seeing the minimum respect
for manual labor as reflected in minimum wages.
Pres. Woodruff was one of the signers of The
Proclamation on the Economy by the Church, and during his administration
as well, it must have been discouraging to him seeing how churchmembers
were selling out the principles of communality and economic solidarity.
Pres. Woodruff: " I do not find fault with a man getting rich. I
find fault with our selling the kingdom of God, our birthright..."
(Deseret News, Semi-Weekly, Feb 29, 1876,1)
From the MESJ document: Latter-day
Saints and Justice for Workers :
Latter-day Saints believe that strong families are vital for the well-being
of individuals and of society. "The Family: A Proclamation to the
World" teaches that "the family is central to the Creator's
plan for the eternal destiny of His children." Economically insecure
families are more likely to have the problems that affect how well a family
functions--divorce, addiction, verbal and physical abuse, and so on. LDS
scripture contains strongly worded warnings to those who do not take care
of the poor and needy (Alma 5:55-56; Mormon 8:35-39; D&C 104:18).
In the scriptures, caring for the poor is not just a question of charity;
it is a question of justice. As King Benjamin explains in the Book of
Mormon, nothing we have is really ours. It is given to us as a sacred
trust--a stewardship--to be used for the benefit of our fellow beings.
It's clear that pres. Woodruff saw respect for the working man as part
of our heritage,
as a birthright that is not for sale.
Come Now, and Let us Reason Together
Isaiah 1:18
Who says Latter-Day Saints aren't interested in social justice issues?
MESJ is taking note of awareness creating online discussions on the internet
that can make all the difference. The following external links will connect
you to a number of weblogs. While MESJ feels these discussions are relevant
to issues of equality and social justice, peace and ecology, she of course
doesn't necessarily agree with all opinions voiced in these discussions.
Please join the conversation!
Hiroshima - by Wilfried
Decoo
On the left: pioneer
ancestors and the International Church - by Wilfried Decoo
A Funny Thing Happened at the Forum on Mormon Feminism - by Kristine
Haglund Harris
Mormons and Darfur -
by Ronan Head
Earth Day and the Church
- by Wilfried Decoo
Marriage
Amendment to the Constitution - by Beliefnet
If you know of other interesting online discussions for this column please
let us know!
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