Akron Ohio Stake News

Retrospect & Prospect

As the pandemic subsides, we relish every resumption to normalcy, rejoice at the revelations given to us by our prophets pre-disaster (even home-centered Church a year before we’re home-confined), recount the tender mercies we received in this trial, and remember the lessons we learned (such as those told by President Nelson in the Priesthood Session of the April 2021 General Conference).

President Nelson also said in the same speech: “There are many things the Lord wants us to learn from our experiences during this pandemic…I invite you to make your own list, consider it carefully, and share it with those you love.”

Indeed, it was a jam-packed year of schooling in such subjects as the way of the Lord and the Church; prophecies and prophetic counsel; home-centered worship; how the world can change overnight; how the adversary and man can cause, take advantage of and magnify havocs; crisis-mode governments and institutions; human nature and our own nature; what things we cherish most and what things we can do without; liberty and its price; security and its price; power; how we fill time and how time may fulfill us and our families; technology and its uses, even in gathering Israel; the intended and unintended consequences of measures and countermeasures; emergency preparedness and last-day preparedness; the meaning of human touch (an essential component of gospel ordinances); the comfortings of the Comforter; stillness. 

As a people and as individuals, we have gone through a stress test and endured a battle. We may have discovered where we need to fortify (a key activity in the Book of Mormon war chapters) ourselves, our families, our organization and ward. And as we take inventory of our losses and near losses, we may also come to feel more keenly our deprivations.

They who have been taken from us—we may only commit them to the Lord (Romans 14:8). They who have been left behind—the Lord has committed them to us (James 1:27).

Meanwhile, the following actual pandemic happenings could have taken place in any stake despite everyone’s best efforts. An active, healthy member, due mostly to miscommunication, did not get to partake the Sacrament for over a year. Another isolated member told her friend: “Loneliness and lack of ability to do anything is just a wreck to me. It’s been too long.” A bishop observed: “There are a couple of youths whose oil was less than half full in their lamps before the pandemic. I think they’re now pretty dry.” A stake leader reported that a ward organization leader took the attitude that home church should be left as that, and no contact was made with or any virtual opportunities organized for members of the organization during the pandemic.

I tell these as one who shares the responsibility. However, we may note there is no censure whatsoever in the Savior’s parable of the lost silver. For who, including the careful and conscientious, hasn’t lost a coin before? The important thing is that we “light a candle, and sweep the house, and seek diligently till [we] find it (Luke 15:8).” 

It was for good reasons, but a hard task, for our welcoming and tending church to devote so much of its time and efforts to limiting rather than inviting attendance and administering versus ministering. Now that the treacherous part of our passage is behind us, we must look back and learn so we can better navigate pestilences that are yet to come. In retrospect, we gain prospect. Perhaps there were more (or less) we should have done; perhaps we’ve overlooked some things (or, more importantly, some people); perhaps we shouldn’t have tolerated some indignation. I, for one, will forever be haunted by the memory of a friend who died alone in a nursing home.

Let us now endeavor to restore, revive, reclaim and renew; search for that precious silver; be like our Shepherd in going after the one (Luke 15:3-7); and, should our brother (not “your son”) decide to go to a far country, make sure he knows that our Father continually waits for him (Luke 15:11-32).  

And in case we think these are the calling of bishops and Relief Society and Elders Quorum leaders, President Nelson’s injunction in the aforementioned speech was: “If you know of anyone who is alone, reach out—even if you feel alone too! You do not need to have a reason or a message or business to transact. Just say hello and show your love.” Yes, we can pull out the phone (not even Zoom) to do that today.