Despite being a fundamental virtue, I hadn't really given the subject of temperance much thought. That is until one day, a few weeks ago, while on a family vacation, that I suddenly had a strong impression that I needed to focus our family study on temperance. This thought came totally out of the blue, so I knew the Lord was directly telling me that this was what I need to teach my children at this time.
Since then, with my mind turned to this subject, I have begun to view many spiritual and temporal principles through the lens of temperance. We have had several family discussions on the topic throughout the last month. Even my son, who is currently serving a church mission down in Peru, has been studying it at my request.
While, obviously, I can't recall our verbal discussions to record here, I thought I would compile here the texts that I have sent to my kids as thoughts have come to my mind during my personal study. It may seem disjointed without recording also the verbal discussions that have transpired as interjections between these texts, but something is better than nothing, and this seems a good place to record these things for myself for future reference (hopefully I will remember to add any future text discussion as well):
Help me remember to talk to you guys. I would like it if we could all study "temperance" in our scripture study today. I'm going to suggest that to Benjamin when we talk to him today. I've been pondering on my friends and loved ones passing through crises of faith, as well as on the contentions in the world, and I feel that temperance is an essential virtue, who's loss has led to division instead of unity.
interesting contexts in which to ponder temperance....
I really hope you all will take the time to study temperance. I was thinking about our conversation yesterday about society as a whole, and activist groups, and discord in personal relationships, and contention arising from opposing political expression, and global conflicts, and war, and media, and our choices with what media we consume, and work and how much we dedicate ourselves to it, etc. in the context of temperance.
All of these things start out sincerely seeking good and initially doing good. But it is when they fail to temper their efforts and allow their thoughts and expressions to go beyond the balance and into the extreme that they not only stop doing good but start doing bad.
We need to really study this topic and learn to really implement temperance into every aspect of our lives if we are to protect ourselves from the dangers of unbridled passions. We are seeing this lack of temperance swallowing beautiful people left and right.
I know myself...very, very well. I know that I am a very passionate person as well as a very focused person. It is easy for me to get caught up in my pursuits, which is why I intentionally work to combat that natural man in me with the higher law of temperance. But I worry even more about my kids getting caught up in the passions of the natural man without deeply understanding and engraining the power and protection of tempering those passions because I love you even more than myself, and I have had more time to witness first hand the devastation that intemperance inflicts upon us directly and through that of those around us. Please don't underestimate the importance of my request that we study temperance together as a family. I love you guys. . . .
I've been thinking about the challenges I've witnessed amongst siblings. Many difficulties appear to be mostly the result of one sibling's choice to be absent from another's life and, therefore, never really coming to know who each other are. Other difficulties I've noticed have come from a sibling's choice to focus their efforts on and exclude other siblings from their own pursuits, again preventing them from really ever coming to know one another.
I've been thinking about this reasoning of working hard now so you won't have to work so hard when you have a family of your own. There is certainly some merit to that motivation, but I want to warn you of the dangers as well. The problem is that it is never a good thing to place work over everything else. If you focus all your time on your business and make yourself absent from your home life, you are sacrificing much more than you realize. You are missing your opportunity to really come to know your siblings. You are missing your opportunity to come to know your parents. You are missing your best opportunity to build relationships with your family. Your time at home with your siblings and parents is limited. You cannot use that limited time to grow with and learn from and have fun with and come to truly know your siblings and family if you choose to be absent from their lives and focus your attention only on (while excluding them from) your own pursuits.
Maybe it is selfish, but I want to have time with all of you individually and collectively. Your siblings want to have time with you. I had some siblings that often excluded me from hanging out with them growing up. They never even had the chance to learn if I would be fun to hang out with. It really hurt me and my self-confidencee. I am terrified of my children growing up with false animosity towards each other that is entirely the result of simply failing to get to know one another. Your siblings can be your greatest support network through each phase of life. As can, of course, your parents. They can also be a great source of pain if any choose to focus so much on themselves that they miss out on each other.
Like myself, you guys have the special privilege of being born into a family with a unique and awesome dynamic. Because I was different than my sisters and more of a tomboy and got along better with my male friends, I always wished I had at least one brother and I always said I hoped to have all sons when I grew up. My wish was granted, with the added benefit of at least one daughter so that I could experience having a daughter and you brothers could experience having a sister. So, in essence, my children have been blessed with what I wished for as a kid.
Don't miss the chance you have to take full advantage of that blessing by thinking it is worth sacrificing balance at this stage of your life to gain it later. Instead, use this time to practice achieving success while also maintaining a healthy balance. You really can have it all if you trust God's plan. This is why temperance is such a fundamental virtue. How can we truly come to love each other with a sincere christlike charity if we don't even really know each other? How can we really know each other if we never spend time together?
Anyway, these are things I've been thinking about since noticing the problems of youth translating into bigger problems as adults. Adults then need to figure out how to fix them before they become eternal problems. You guys can avoid them altogether by loving each other and putting the time and effort into knowing each other. I love you.
Also, Ben said that as he was studying temperance, he noticed that one of the blessings directly linked to it is an increase in your love for others. That makes sense when you consider that intemperance interferes with your time and ability you have for coming to know those around you (and, in turn, coming to love them). . . .
This is excellent (note that the year he gave this task was 2009, right after the real estate crash that hurt us so much) :
Being Temperate in All Things
https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/general-conference/2009/10/being-temperate-in-all-things?lang=eng
This is an excerpt from a president Benson talk that i thought was interesting in that he links temperance in a general application to temper specifically:
A priesthood holder is temperate. This means he is restrained in his emotions and verbal expressions. He does things in moderation and is not given to overindulgence. In a word, he has self-control. He is the master of his emotions, not the other way around. A priesthood holder who would curse his wife, abuse her with words or actions, or do the same to one of his own children is guilty of grievous sin. “Can ye be angry, and not sin?” asked the Apostle Paul. (JST, Eph. 4:26.) If a man does not control his temper it is a sad admission that he is not in control of his thoughts. He then becomes a victim to his own passions and emotions, which lead him to actions that are totally unfit for civilized behavior, let alone behavior for a priesthood holder. President David O. McKay once said, “A man who cannot control his temper is not very likely to control his passion, and no matter what his pretensions in religion, he moves in daily life very close to the animal plane.”. . . .
How does being temperamental compare to being temperate? That's an interesting thing to think about. 🤔 Can being temperamental apply to our actions or only our moods? Would idolatry be the opposite of temperance? Or maybe overindulgence? I suppose, as an antonym, idolatry better captures the meaning in the broader context. Wantonness?
I suppose temperamental could also fall under the antonyms of temperance. I forgot I had considered that yesterday. My brain. 🤦♀️ Could we apply temperamental to actions and behaviors? 🤔 Just some things to ponder on. . . .
Pertaining to our discussion last night, I had some thoughts:
As you age, you gain both experience and skill. This allows you to manage increasingly difficult challenges. This is the whole purpose of mortality: to mold you into something greater. Our challenges cannot be compared or compete against each other to determine which is more difficult work, because our experiences and skillsets are not the same. So to say "my work is more difficult than yours" really has no practical meaning.
The Lord will always give us work that will push us, so our work will always be difficult for each of us, even if it is different.
It's easy to fall into the trap of looking at others and feeling like they have it easier than you do. But the truth is that we are all in the refiner's fire, being pushed just beyond our capacity, so as to develop and strengthen our capacity. In other words, like glass, we are all being "tempered" so that we can withstand greater and greater challenges and uphold heavier and heavier burdens.
The greatest challenge is to learn to find balance when we are weighed down by our burdens, to let Christ take up our yoke and carry the load with us. If we focus so heavily on the challenge before us, trying to prove that we can carry the load alone, we miss out on the most important lesson, which is to allow the enabling power of the atonement to work in our lives... to forget ourselves and truly trust in the Lord.
We are taught to avoid all light-mindedness. Light-mindedness means attributing our successes entirely to our own efforts. It means forgetting God instead of forgetting ourselves. It means refusing to allow the Lord to take up your yoke.
Conversely, hope is trust in the Lord. Hope is knowing that God will provide... knowing the He WILL take up our yoke if we let Him and that he will enable us to achieve far greater things than we could ever achieve on our own.
Faith is a working knowledge of the truth. We build upon it by enacting these things into our lives and learning from experience that they truly work. Faith is learning from experience.
Charity is the pure love of Christ. It is becoming like He is by doing like He does. It is not conditional. It is a deeply rooted, undeniable love for our fellow man that is not quenched by the infirmities and fallacies of others, but truly tempered and strengthened to the point that no condition can lessen it.
We are taught to avoid all lightmindedness because lightnindedness prevents us from coming to truly know the Lord and thus makes us unable to become like Him. It prevents us from developing faith, hope, and charity by preventing us from applying His teachings to our lives.
It can feel like these teachings are just nebulous, etherial concepts, but, in reality, they are real, concrete, tangible applications. I no longer wonder if the enabling power of the atonement works. I know it works. When I temper my passions, find balance in my life, put others before my own pursuits, etc., every single time the Lord takes up my yoke and helps me to achieve far more than I ever would or could have on my own. That is the true secret to success.
As you probably know, a yoke is what hitches two oxen together, to balance the load between them. In that sense, a yoke can also be symbolic of temperance. It is a symbol of balance, more specifically, a symbol of the increased strength and capacity that is the result of finding balance.
If you think of acrobats and contortionists, they are able to do much more when they learn to find balance and center. Once they come to recognize and utilize their center of balance, they no longer require as much strength and effort to achieve those incredible feats that they do. The balance itself increases their capacity by carrying the load that is greater than their muscles can withstand on their own. . . .
https://www.facebook.com/100093327374359/posts/626672837120290/
Here's a true story that illustrates how the lord enables you to do the impossible, to do far more than you otherwise would have been capable of, when you choose balance and temperance (in this case honoring the sabbath) when it seems completely reasonable and justified to sacrifice that balance for something seemingly greater. . . .
To be continued. . . .
