The covenant path

This phrase is mentioned a lot now in church articles and in conference talks. I don’t remember ever hearing that phrase when I was growing up.

I think for the benefit of my posterity I will give my thoughts on the matter.

I have understood that the Lord our Father in Heaven sent us here on earth to see if we would prove that we could learn to be like Him.

In order to do this the Lord requires us to make covenants with Him. If we keep the covenants then He promises us that He will allow us to live with Him.

The first covenant we make is the covenant of baptism. We promise to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those that stand in need of comfort and to stand as a witness of God at all times and in all places even until we die. 

Jesus Christ was baptized as an example and to show that it was a necessary ordinance. As a result the ordinance of laying on of hands is given to give us a gift. That gift is the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost will lead us to all truth.

The next covenant that we make is to partake of the sacrament. By so doing we covenant to always remember Christ and keep all of His commandments. Since we are imperfect and often do not live and keep all the commandments, we can repeat this ordinance every week. The Lord promises us that if we keep His commandments we will always have His Spirit to be with us to guide us on the path to Him.

The next covenant that we, as His sons, make is what is called the oath and covenant of the priesthood. The oath is sworn by the Lord. This states “All that my Father hath shall be given unto them.” We make the covenant to accept the priesthood and to honor it.  See Doctrine and Covenants 84:33-41.

The next covenant we make is temple covenants. In order to enter the temple one needs a recommend from two priesthood leaders. In the mouth of two or more witnesses shall all things be established. The questions in the interviews are pointed to see if we are willing to live by the covenants that we will make in the temple. In the temple we make a series of covenants and the Lord endows us with priesthood power. That is why it is called an endowment. Most people do not fully understand the difference between priesthood power and priesthood authority. I will not elaborate here. You can ask me later.

All these covenants are individual covenants that we make with the Lord. They do not involve any other individual, only the person involved and the Lord.

The next covenant that we make does involve an other person. It is called the new and everlasting covenant. Some people call this a temple marriage. It is really much more than that. It is properly called a sealing in the new and everlasting covenant. There are many promises associated with this covenant. Without this covenant we cannot live with God for it is essential for our salvation and exaltation. It comes with certain commandments and expectations. They are to be found in the scriptures.

There are more covenants that are necessary to live with our Father in Heaven, but they will be given to us at the Lord’s discretion and many will receive them in the spirit world.

The covenant path is strait and narrow. As Lehi saw, there are obstacles placed in our path for us to overcome, just as our Heavenly Father did before us.

We need to hold onto the iron rod to be safe. These are the scriptures and the words of God’s messengers the prophets and daily conversations with God (prayer).

Failure to hold onto the iron rod will make us a target for the adversary and lead us off the path.

Now my dear grandchildren, where are you on that covenant path?

Love Grandpa

The Implication of Time

“Dost thou love life? Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of.”

This is a quote from Benjamin Franklin. 

Too often we do not take this counsel into consideration in our lives. We, as a people, generally do waste a lot of precious time doing things that will have little consequence in our lives here in this mortal existence and certainly in the life to come. 

Elder Bednar gave a talk recently about this subject.(View Here) or (Read Here ) Most of us have a device in our hands that will allow us to read a number of books. We can write essays or a journal or email friends. We can read the news or look at videos of symphony orchestras.  But a great number of people just while away precious time playing games or posting on social media. A small amount of time doing this for entertainment may be acceptable, but most people spend more time doing this than is wise. 

The problem is that they do not expand their vision to see what they could accomplish. They do not really believe with all their hearts that they were sent here on earth to learn to be like their Father in Heaven. 

Let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly is the counsel of the Lord to us in these latter days. 

We will eventually have to learn everything that our Father in Heaven knows in order to be like Him. We need to expand our knowledge in all fields. 

In the Book of Mormon, Lehi has a dream in which he sees a number of things. One of these is mists of darkness that cloud the vision of the people seeking the love of God. These are not put there by God, but by the adversary. 

On your device you can read the scriptures (the iron rod in the dream) or the words of the prophets (the conference addresses).  How much time do you spend holding on to the iron rod as compared to looking at social media or playing games? The iron rod will get you closer to God than any of these. 

Once you are out of school, you shouldn't stop learning. In my day we had encyclopedias with a lot of information.  Now you can learn about idiopathic pulmonary hemosiderosis from your hand held device. You can learn about stars and their motion and the tides of the ocean.  You have the information that your ancestors never had and now how are you spending your time?

Grandpa says,"Spend it wisely!"

Let the lower lights be burning

Let the lower lights be burning

I just attended the funeral of my grandson Christopher. The song that my four sons sang was “Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy“. There is this phrase in the song ‘let the lower lights be burning’.

Some years ago I heard a talk by Elder Boyd K. Packer who addressed this subject. The song is an allegory. The "brightly beams" refers to the lighthouse. This is a navigational point to guide sailors. It is a reference point so that people know where they are. It shines at night with an oscillating light so that the ships will have a reference to steer by and it can be seen for many miles. During the daytime most lighthouses are placed in a prominent location so they can be seen for miles. This is exactly what Our Father in Heaven does by shining his mercy out into the darkness of the world.

Most of us don’t have any trouble seeing during the daytime. We do have problems when it is dark. Think about driving a car on an unfamiliar road at night without lights on your car. Now think about trying to navigate a boat in the water at night. There is no road to guide you. If the sky is overcast you will have no reference points.

Perhaps you can see the lighthouse, but you don’t know where the rocks are and a passageway into an inlet where there is a safe harbor. This is where the lower lights come in.

We have GPS now, but in the early days we had to rely on lights.

In order to guide sailors to safety, they would place lights along the shore to indicate where to steer the ship safely.
 
We are to be the lights along the shore so to speak. It is our light that will help others to find the true gospel of Jesus Christ. Christ taught that we should let that light shine before men that they would see our good works and then they would glorify God by repentance and come into his kingdom.

We are to lift up the hands that hang down and strengthen the feeble knees by shining our light.

When we visited Dunraven castle, Stanley Bevan told us a story that you can read here. Dunraven castle is where our Butler ancestors came from. 

The next time you hear the song “Brightly Beams Our Father’s Mercy“ think of how you can help someone to come into the safe harbor of the mercy of our Heavenly Father. You are the light. Keep it burning bright. My light shines for you. 

Look to my light and not the lanterns on the tails of the sheep or cattle. There are plenty of Matts of the Iron Hand out there to mislead you. The Father's light shines ever so brightly. 
 
Love,
 
Grandpa

Macular degeneration and me

No one likes to discuss illnesses, let alone hear about other people’s aches and pains. 

A doctor’s life is centered around this discussion, so I hope that you will indulge me for a minute or two. The reason being, is that you belong to my gene pool. 

What I have, may come into your life as well. 

To begin with, both my parents had macular degeneration. I was naive and did not pay much attention, mainly because it was their problem and I did not know that it would affect me until later on.

One day I saw a dumbbell shaped object in my vision. I went to see Dr. Fontaine down the street. He said that I had a hemorrhage on the retina and referred me to a retinal specialist in Salt Lake who used a laser to stop the bleeding. I developed another hemorrhage in the same right eye and underwent another laser treatment. 

I was diagnosed with dry type of macular degeneration and other than losing the central vision in my right eye I have done well over the past 20+ years with only peripheral vision on the right. I have normal vision in the left eye. 

Our family was enrolled in a study at the Moran Eye Institute at my request and they found that my wife had the wet type of macular degeneration and she eventually ended up getting shots in both eyes to preserve her vision. Her vision is stable now.

We have a son who is now getting shots in his eye to preserve his vision. 

So you may end up with age related macular degeneration. 

This condition occurs in the Kerr family.

My aunt Alta had it, as well as number of her siblings and some descendants. Alta’s son George had it and his son George has the disease. 

Robert Marion Kerr and his son Robert had it as well. Robert’s brother Joseph also had the disease.

My cousin Merrill Gee has stable macular degeneration.

On the Stucki side;

My uncle Wendell Stucki had the disease as well and so far none of his children have reported being affected. 

My cousin Mary Lou had the condition. She was my aunt Evelyn’s daughter. 

My uncle Max had macular degeneration as well, but none of his three children have it. 

As you can see this appears to be a genetically inherited disease. 

So what is Grandpa’s counsel?

I have always said illness like sin is best treated early in its course. Since you don’t know if you are going to have vision problems in the future, you should check the vision using an Amsler grid.Here is the URL:

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&channel=tus&q=amsler+grid

If the lines look wavy start taking PreserVison vitamins and get an appointment with a retinal specialist. 

The earlier you get intervention the better the result will be. 

You need to save both your physical and spiritual vision to see clearly.

Love,

Grandpa

Immunizations and me

This is a really strange title for a Blog, but what could you expect from a grandpa who is a doctor?

I thought it appropriate since there is an outbreak of measles going around in the country right now. 

I grew up when there were only a few immunizations available as compared to the present time. 

When I was about six months old I got scarlet fever. The mortality rate for this disease in infants of one year or less was 20% at the time. In addition the complication of rheumatic fever was high. If one contracted rheumatic fever there was also a chance that it would result in heart disease with scarring of the heart valves. Especially the mitral valve. 

Scarlet fever is a result of an infection with group A streptococcus that contains an erythrogenic toxin. This causes the typical sandpaper rash of the disease. 

When I first came to Lander to practice, a cardiologist from Casper, Brendan Phibbs, instituted a strep eradication program in the state of Wyoming. We would have all the schools routinely do throat swabs and send them to the state lab. Any positive cultures were then treated with long acting penicillin and recultured after a month. We thus eliminated the asymptomatic strep carriers and reduced the cases of rheumatic fever to zero over the course of a few years. Every child in school who was ill with a sore throat was cultured on their return back to school. There is no immunization for this disease. 

I got all the “childhood diseases”. I got measles, mumps, chickenpox, German measles and whooping cough.  I was immunized for smallpox and carried a yellow card with me on my mission to Germany. At that time no one could come into the United States unless they had proof that they had been immunized for smallpox. I still have the scar from that and your grandmother does as well.

When I left practice in 1996 there had been no cases of smallpox in the United States since 1949 and they had stopped immunizing for smallpox. It was no longer a threat. 

My aunt Mable got smallpox and had a scarred pox marked face for the rest of her life. She was fortunate enough to avoid any more serious complications. 

My grandfather’s brother Charles got measles when he was 4 years old and as a result was deaf for the rest of his life. 

There are a number of family members of Lysander Gee buried in the Tooele cemetery who died of Diphtheria. Now we have a vaccination for it.  Fortunately I did not get the disease. 

When we visited Donetsk Ukraine. There were two patients in the ICU on ventilators.  They had diphtheria. 

I saw a case of tetanus when I was in my internship in Ogden. Marion Joseph Kerr, my great grandfather, got tetanus when he was kicked by a horse. He nearly died. I also took care of a patient with paralytic poliomyelitis. Now we have immunizations for the disease. 

We have immunizations to prevent many diseases. My grandchildren and their posterity can avoid the illnesses that I had by receiving immunizations. 

Grandpa says get your shots or oral vaccine and save your self from illness. 

Love, 

Grandpa

If the Saviour stood beside me

We have been to two graduation ceremonies this spring. We have also attended both high school and college graduations in the past few years. At each of these ceremonies the announcement has been made that applause should be reserved until all the graduates are presented. There are those present who think that this does not apply to them. They whistle and shout in high decibel volume and even bring air horns and blow them to herald the graduate of their liking.

In my day they would be considered uncouth and extremely ill mannered. We sat in front of someone at the last graduation who shouted out so loud that it hurt my ears. Fortunately the air horn at the one previous was so far away when it off that I only cringed.

I felt ashamed to even be present.

Recently there was a woman who yelled out three times in general conference to draw attention to herself and cause disrespect and disrupt an otherwise solemn meeting.

These people have no self-respect and certainly no respect for others.

We have become calloused and insensitive to the sensibilities of others as general rule. Not all are this way, but it seems to be an infectious disorder.

The mood of the moment of graduation is best captured by the Academic Festival Overture and the song in it Gaudeamus igiture. It is solemn yet joyful.

Here is a quotation from Joseph F Smith.

“It is not safe for men or women to conclude that because they have fulfilled carefully their public responsibilities they have done all that is required of them. Public requirements are changeable. Public demands vary with the times. Sometimes they are strict and sometimes they are very lax. Public sentiment becomes fickle and it is often indifferent to the conduct of individuals who take license from a public indifference to wrongdoing. Individual responsibility is more concerned with the duties which men owe to their God, whose requirements are positive and constant. When men feel that they are ever under an All-Seeing Eye, their conduct is measured in the strictest terms. They are not subject to lapses of public sentiment.”

Gospel Doctrine by Joseph F. Smith

We might take the words of the primary song to heart. “If the Savior stood beside me would I do the things I do?”

No matter what others do we must live to a higher standard.

Love,

Grandpa

Philosophy

I found this document in some papers in my file cabinet. It was a letter that I wrote to Peter Osthoff a few years ago. As you know Peter was in my Boy Scout Troop when I was a young missionary in Hildesheim in 1954. We later became acquainted the first time your grandmother and I went back to Germany in 1979. We went to Hildesheim to church and we were climbing up the stairs to the chapel when this man with a handle-bar mustache spoke out and said, “Bruder Gee”. We had dinner with him and his wife Barbara then. He and his wife came to visit in Lander and we visited in Germany a number of times. He later invited us to go with them to the Salt Lake Temple where he and his wife received their endowments and were sealed twenty-five years after their marriage even though he had contributed money to the Frankfurt temple and the Swiss temple was open in 1955.

He was more interested in philosophy and the learning of the world and so this is what I wrote to him.  The article referred to below is from a book by Hugh Nibley titled “The World and the Prophets”. 

Remember my grandchildren that the teachings of the world are the philosophies of men mingled with scripture, which will not bring you to the full knowledge of the truth and your Father in Heaven.


You have said that you had studied some philosophy and wondered what a member of the church should understand from Philosophy and what they propose.

We must first understand that the philosophers try to answer life‘s questions by reason.

I think it was the Greeks who first popularized philosophy, but certainly there were other “thinkers” before then.

All had no knowledge of the gospel although it was given to man upon the earth in the dispensations of Adam, Enoch, Noah and Abraham.

It was not present at the time of Christ. People followed their own knowledge and people seeking for the truth really were in the dark.

I have enclosed an article by Hugh Nibley regarding philosophers and the prophets which may be of interest to you.



We really must understand that without the light of the gospel in the lives of people they are left to their own intelligence to find the truth and that is a slow and unsure process.

Long before philosophy was popular a prophet in America stated this truth. That we have to be enticed by the good or the evil. That we cannot live in a state where we cannot choose. Therefore it is given to all men regardless of their knowledge of the gospel to live and be agents unto themselves. To learn to decide what is good and what is evil. What is truth and what is falsehood. That all men can be judged according to their actions.

Although the other faiths (and the Christians are in the minority in the world and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is a minority in this group) have many good and devout members who believe and practice their faith devoutly they do not have the inspired answers to all of life’s questions.

The gospel provides us who have received it, the path to eternal happiness and exaltation. It also provides for the inclusion of all men who will obey the principles of the gospel in this life or the life to come. No other religion makes that bold statement.