I’ve been reading a fair amount of Church history lately. As always, I am amazed with the challenges that early members of the Church had to overcome. Houses and farms were burned, they were physically beaten, they were driven from their homes in Illinois, Missouri and Ohio. 1842 and 1843 were an especially spiritually challenging time, in my opinion: how do you remain a faithful Church member when your leadership admits to secretly — and then openly — promoting polygamy?

So, I had always assumed that our time was much easier than theirs, that it is easier to be faithful now than then. But, and here is the question for our dear readers: is it? Are our challenges, though different, just as difficult as the challenges in the pioneer days?

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My place of employment (a military base) is a bit remote. The nearest town is 40 to 60 miles away (depending on where exactly you work), though a large number of employees live much farther than that (90 to 120 miles or more). Therefore, almost all the off-base people are in carpools or vanpools. It all works well, and helps keep the employees sane, but if one of the car/vanpool riders has to unexpectedly leave work early for some reason, transportation becomes an issue. There is no such thing as public transportation out here.

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The ongoing discussion under Elisabeth’s post on Harvard Stay-at-home-moms has taken an interesting turn. The recent comments parsing the meaning of the Proclamation on the Family reminded me of a post I wrote just over a year ago. Here it is. The original post, found at the unpronouncable blog, here, also had lots of worthwhile comments.

From the Proclamation on the Family: “By divine design, fathers are to preside over their famlies in love and righteousness and are responsible to provide the necessities of life and protection for their families. Mothers are primarily responsible for the nurture of their children. In these sacred responsibilities, fathers and mothers are obligated to help ach other as equal partners.”

The proclamation sets up an interesting symmetry here that, if examined, is likely to cause difficulty for some of the more conservative-minded members of the church.

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Given the gravity of the situation in the gulf with two massive hurricanes in less than a month, I’ve been concentrating a lot of my energy — and blogging time — on Church relief efforts. Sorry if this stuff gets repetitive or boring, but the Church’s activities are worth noting.

The first bit of news is that I’m organizing a stake trip to Mississippi to help clean up from Katrina on Oct. 6-9. We expect about 50 people from the Homestead stake to drive up from Miami to the Biloxi area. This is not an easy trip — it’s a 12-14 hour drive from Miami and when we get there we need to be completely self-sufficient, meaning we need to bring all of our own food, water, camping gear, etc. Most of the people helping out are camping near chapels or stake centers.

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I am struck by the different images we’ve had recently of people in search of a homeland. In a crowded and territorial world, displacement and disinheritance are the too-common results of disaster. I feel sympathy for the many different kinds of refugees spread out across the globe, some made homeless by weather catastrophes, some forced into exile by warlords and henchmen. And their troubles evoke a beautiful story in my mind, one that I’m surprised we do not verbalize more frequently.

A long time ago in an unknown land, a handful of missionaries visited a wicked people.

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