From Neal A. Maxwell, a previous post, The New Morality +50 years, : Some sense of history is very important, therefore, in looking at this matter of relevancy. It is vital, too, to distinguish between the significance of saying, for instance, that an organization is irrelevant and saying its membership ought to be doing more. (continuing. . . .)
What follows are a number of observations, obviously not inclusive, which show the relevancy of the teachings of Jesus Christ for our everyday lives—here and now. The fact that there are those who preach these same teachings without seeming to be aware of their relevancy does not reduce their relevancy of these concepts for the perceptive member. By the same token the fact that many of us fail to apply these in a relevant way in our relationships with our fellowmen does not reduce either the relevancy or the validity of the teachings for those who do apply them.
There is much discussion today about the many faces of alienation. This concern is appropriate, because there are forms of “alone-ness” which are not only inimical(1) to the individual, but which may adversely affect his relationship with the rest of society. The isolate can become a tragically catalytic man as he works out their hostility. The fact was first weaved into the tapestry of truth in Genesis, when it was observed that “it is not good for man to be alone.” While this reference related to the significance of marriage, it also is a statement of truth which goes beyond that point of reference.
The Word of Wisdom, whose validity has been demonstrated amply by science—at least in some of its specifics—has too often been lauded solely as a health code, which, while true, leaves out the relevancy of this doctrine in terms of the awful arithmetic of alcoholism, for instance. If as many of the young generation maintain, violence and death are the ultimate obscenity, alcohol is obscene in terms of the death and maiming it causes on the highways, the child beatings, and the terrible tragedies in the homes where it visits its full afflictions.
The relevancy of work—the inherent dignity of work with its implicit potential for assuring us that we are needed, that we can influence some things, in an age of boredom and leisure—may need to be restated in fresh terms. An excess of leisure can set in motion forces whose consequences have yet to be measured psychologically. The inherent difficulties that often occur around the crisis of retirement are ample, added proof about the meaning of work in our lives. It may even be that we shall live to see the time when there are meaningful “make-work projects” to provide “spiritual” income such as were once used to provide economic income.
Nor have we realized the “insight-lead” we have been given in the message of the Master in terms of how we can best help people and still preserve their individual dignity. ~Neal A. Maxwell, For the Power is in Them (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1970), 53-55 (continued. . .)
- inimical – tending to obstruct or harm
