My blog post on Come Follow Me: D&C 77-80

Excerpt:
D&C 77
This revelation was given as part of Joseph and Sidney’s work on translating the Bible. As mentioned before, Joseph didn’t actually translate the Bible, as he never used ancient Hebrew, Aramaic and Greek texts. Instead, he used an English Bible purchased at the E. B. Grandin printing press shop. He possibly also used other materials available, such as a commentary, to go through the .Bible. Much of the process, rather than a translation process, was revelatory. The Bible and exercise, as with translating other documents, were catalysts for inspiration and revelation. This is evidenced by the fact that there are no examples of some writings in Joseph’s translation of the Bible, such as writings on Moses, Adam, Enoch (Book of Moses), Melchizedek, Joseph of Egypt, etc. These writing do not exist anywhere, except in Joseph’s translation of the Bible.

In translating the Book of Rev elation, Joseph had questions regarding some of the beings and events in the book.

https://joelsmonastery.blogspot.com/2021/07/come-follow-me-d-77-80.html

Several years back, I had a life-changing conversation with a woman named Joan Blades. After establishing the progressive activist organization MoveOn.org, Joan pursued her passion of climate change advocacy diligently until she came to a major realization.  As she often puts it, “we’ll never be able to make the progress we need with adversarial problem solving.”  

So, Joan left MoveOn and started Living Room Conversations – as an attempt to bring people together across America’s many divides.  And that’s how I met Joan and started working with her.  

In Joan, I met someone open to hearing my honest questions about climate change – without being quickly written off as one of those “deniers.” And as a result, I found myself wanting to understand Joan more, and hear her heart. That’s when this surprising thing happened.  Rather than the familiar place of feeling defensive about my own views, I found myself starting to pay serious attention to the level of fear I was hearing from Joan and other progressives I knew.  

My perspective on climate change had not shifted, but something else did when I recognized the emotional burden people were feeling.  One woman even told me she was suicidal about the state of our planet.  As I wrote about at the time for the Huffington Post, “Shouldn’t their deepest fears matter to me, even if I didn’t as of yet share their belief and convictions?”  

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245 years ago, almost every person on earth was a slave. Only kings and lord’s were citizens with God given inalienable rights. Then, a few of those slaves proclaimed they also we’re children of God and He granted all his creation inalienable rights, among these: Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness.

Ever since Thomas Jefferson penned those immortal words, humans have been in a continuous struggle for liberty and rights. Wars have been fought to overthrow kings, despots and tyrants. Peaceful and violent protests have led to freedom. Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr, Lech Walesa, and others brought greater freedom to billions.

Still, we are always only a generation away from forgetting and losing that freedom. Look at China cracking down on Hong Kong. They are subjects of the Chinese state. They want to be citizens with freedom of speech, etc. They want their inalienable rights.

Much of the world is in battle for freedom right now. The battles continue in the United States, as people of color seek their own rights. The Amish just won a case in the Supreme Court against tyranny in county government. Religious freedom barely won out against despotism here in America.

The Berlin Wall fell about 30 years ago. Hundreds of millions became free with little bloodshed. Sadly, Russia and other nations again struggle between freedom and government control. Freedom is failing in many nations right now. This is partially due to America being distracted in endless foreign wars and internal struggle, rather than being Reagan’s city on the hill.

We need to be that light again.

We must either seek to expand freedom, or others will come and take it away. And freedom must be for everyone, else no one is truly free.

Growing up I enjoyed listening to Paul Harvey on the radio. His stories were always interesting and his voice was, and still is comforting.

Here is Mr. Harvey teaching us what actually happened to the signers of the Declaration of Independence. Mr. Harvey points out that, “They were not poor men. They were not wild eyed pirates. These were men of means. They were rich men most of them, and had enjoyed much ease and luxury in their personal living. Not hungry men, certainly not terrorists, not irresponsible malcontents, not fanatical incendiaries, These men were prosperous men, wealthy land owners. They were substantially secure in their prosperity. They had everything to lose, but they considered liberty so much more important than security. They pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor, and they fulfilled their pledge. They paid the price, and freedom was born.”