On July 7, some anomaly happen with the post, which was quite lengthy, and will split into at least two (perhaps more) posts. It disappeared from my wordpress files also! I took that as something the Lord didn’t want published. Re-looking and in starting over, it is still very worth looking at for believers (or not) especially considering this, from Neal A. Maxwell, was published in 1973! The ‘troubled 60’s’ following World War II, the ‘independent thinking’ of the first wave of the Baby Boomer generation from ‘traditional values’ across the free world and its relevance in some ways has increased over 5 decades. This ‘sets the stage’ for today’s post and more coming soon . . . .
From Neal A. Maxwell’s book… ‘the smallest part. . .which I feel’. “. . . all truth, as a knowledge of various realities, is similar. . . , but there are inevitable gradations, both in the significance of truths and in our grasp of their implications.
Thus, like the time-lapse photography we see on TV weather shows, clouds come and go, drop their water, shade us, cool us, vex us—but the land and water masses that persist beneath the passing clouds are like the unchanging truths by which men must manage their lives.
This unique approach to truth, far from denigrating reason, gives us added reasons to develop our intellectual powers because, as John Locke said: “Reason is natural revelation, whereby the eternal father of light, and fountain of all knowledge, communicates to mankind that portion of truth which he has laid within the reach of their natural faculties: revelation is natural reason enlarged by a new set of discoveries communicated by God. . . .”
Hence, to huddle in contentment without extending oneself intellectually and socially merely because one has the knowledge of key truths is a betrayal of our trust. When one fails to stretch his “natural faculties,” or to use the light God gives him, his is a stewardship gone sour. Brigham Young said: “The laws that the Lord has given are not fully perfect because the people could not fully receive them in their perfect fullness; but they can receive a little here and a little there. . . .
“Hence, if you wish to act upon the fullness of the knowledge that the Lord designs to reveal, little by little, to the inhabitants of the earth, we must improve upon every little as it is revealed.”
It is not accident that men like Abraham, Moses, and Joseph Smith who learned to see so much with their eye of faith,” were given splendid supplemental insights about the universe. But God’s desire to share must be met by our readiness to receive. We must be appreciative of, and skilled enough to deal with, the truth that is already “within reach” of our natural faculties. By discovering truth in its many independent spheres, and yet still being humble enough to be enlarged by “a new set of discoveries,” truth begets truth. Without divine guidance, our cerebral calisthenics, though often fascinating to engage in, can be empty exercise.
. . . . Knowing the truth about “who” man really is involves both his identity and destiny, and the implications of such persistent realities include crucial information about what man’s mortal environment should contain for his well being. The institution of the family is at “peril point,” for instance. Professor Urie Bronfenbrenner warns regarding our spreading generational separateness: “. . . In today’s world children are deprived not only of parents but of adults in general. . . . what is needed is a change in our patterns of living that will bring adults and children back into each other’s lives.”‘ ~Neal A. Maxwell, the smallest part which I feel (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1973) 8-9 (continued)
(Posts with a preamble asterisk * are for a more general audience, and not specific to teachings of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.)
