Hans H. Mattsson, Area 70 On Mormon Stories

[Calm]

So was Oliver Cowdery.

Which would lead me to think that someone can have doubts about leadership and even severe disagreements without being a wolf in sheep's clothing.

[Calm]

Alas, I grew up in an era of franchise religion, characterized by standardization and correlation. It was a time when reading and not-reading amounted to about the same thing. Here on the moon, we are first told what the words mean, then we read them as a mere exercise in devotion, already having been taught what to expect from them. Our scriptures were mere signs of things called "continuing revelation," interpreted for us by specialists and subject to the leveling machinery of a correlation department bent on delivering a single, vanilla-flavored faith-promoting story. It didn't matter at all what any of it actually said. Well, until now, that is.

You know, I am usually very good at being able to understand the possibility of how others interpret something...be able to defend why people respond in ways differently than I do, but honestly I have no clue how you've arrived at this position of "t didn't matter at all what any of it actually said"....and I really wish I did as it seems to be very important for many who are having a faith crisis.

Have you ever thought you learn better from hearing things than reading them? This is the only process that occurs to me at the moment that might have such an impact.

Edited July 22, 2013 by calmoriah

[Duncan]

Have you listened to his interview?

He hasn't forgotten the spiritual expriences of the past. He's just viewing them from a different perspective.

FWIW, that article was written in 2004. His faith struggles started in 2005. So there's no contradiction or misrepresentation from this article.

no, I didn't listen to the interview but I just wonder why he would re interpret his spiritual experiences, I was just pointing out that he seemed to have this experience on his mission that he clings to and so why would he re interpret everything. If the Gospel was true in the 1970's I don't see why it would be untrue today

[Calm]

And this is the first I've heard of Mattsson. I had no idea it had been discussed 'ad nasuem.'

He said the issues that he has, not Mattsson himself...at least that is how I understood him.

PS: I see he states this himself later on...

Edited July 22, 2013 by calmoriah

[Calm]

I think we often misinterpret the concept of "true and living church", because we do not keep reading. The Lord notes that at the time of the revelation, the LDS Church was the only "true and living church, with which, I the Lord, am well pleased." This suggests there may be other true and living churches. There may be some true churches, and some living churches. There may be some that the Lord is somewhat pleased with, and others that he is not pleased with, at all.

Also, the Terrestrial Kingdom is described as honorable people that the Lord loves. They are considered Jesus' children. That is not a path to the fullness, but it is a path of ascendancy for many who do not feel comfortable with all the LDS Church engenders. And the Church is perfect when it deals with core doctrine, principles and ordinances, but often is not perfect when it strays from those things (which is why we have continuing revelation).

Well stated (out of points but feel this is thoughtful enough that I want to recognize it)

I would also like to add that while the Church is perfect in core doctrine, principles and ordinances, it is not always perfect in how it communicates them due to all involved being human where perfect communication is impossible. That is what the Spirit is for but unfortunately that moment of perfect communication passes and we are left at times to struggle with remembering that pure intelligence he has conveyed to us.

Edited July 22, 2013 by calmoriah

[Calm]

Maybe that is the case for some of these people. That for them it is the Church of Joseph, in that their faith was in Joseph, so maybe this questioning will turn into something good.

I think that has a great deal with why God doesn't micromanage the Church more, so that people see the mistakes of its leaders and so end up finally turning to God for the answers rather than relying solely on prophets and other church leaders for their spiritual growth. I personally see church leaders as helping us frame the questions we are supposed to bring to the Lord, not ultimately providing the answers for those questions. Those are for God to give us.

[pmccombs1]

I am not debating that you didn't know or condemning you, I am just curious about learning how this works for those who have read the D&C and don't process it as evidence of Joseph's plural marriages, but something else. Please, could you possibly give more detail as to how you interpreted certain verses as well as the heading so that you understood it to be only Emma?

The thing is, I didn't interpret certain verses at all. I let others interpret things for me, and if there weren't any interpretations, then I certainly didn't feel authorized to invent my own. So those verses were just words, and I never stopped to consider them, or think about what they really meant, or if they suggested something other than what I had grown up thinking. You're right that I didn't "process" them.

You have to understand: I never joined the Church. I'm a cradle Mormon; I was never presented with something new to consider. I only ever had Primary Children stories that grew into gospel doctrine stories, and this text that presumably converts other people to the gospel was just a prop for me. Why did I read it? I was supposed to read it. That was the righteous thing to do. Why would it paint a different picture for me than what my Sunday school teachers presented from their standardized curriculum? They didn't have much to say about polygamy at all, and therefore neither did section 132. My scripture "study" (assisted by all of the correlated cross references and pre-written notes) didn't matter other than being one of those things that the righteous can tick off their checklist: "I read my scriptures." I was holding to the rod, right? And the D&C was a minor player; mostly I spent my time in the Book of Mormon. President Benson put a lot of emphasis on it in those days.

Now, like Brother Mattson and others here, I do have issues with my Church; but mine don't arise from these "problems" in church history, even though I understand the experience of discovering a church other than the one carefully crafted and presented to me in my youth by standardized curriculum. I really rather like the interesting fellow that was Joseph Smith, and I am more inclined to believe that he was prophet material than I am to believe in the business-clad mediocrity which I consider to be the fare of modern times.

I do believe that correlation has been a terrible thing in the Church, and I hope that we get away from it. I think we need our colorful past (and a colorful present!) and not a standardized one. These methods of mass-production schooling have not served the nation well; I wonder why we employ the same ideas at Church in our curriculum. When people don't fit the mold, the realization of it is something like that moment when the hypnotist grants his permission to awaken from the story-land he has made, and the absurdity of the whole episode is opened to the mind of the subject. I think that's what correlation did to us, and I blame it for adding to the difficulties that challenge many who are leaving the Church today. I don't think it's intentionally misleading, just terribly inept and uninspired.

Maybe Brother Mattson was a victim of this correlation, but it's more likely that younger people who formed their ideas of the Church over the past 20-30 years are going to be more affected by it.

That's my opinion, based on what limited observation I can make of myself and others. I don't claim it to be just or well-reasoned, and maybe I am a little bit arrogant and dogmatic in my own ideas.

[pmccombs1]

I have no clue how you've arrived at this position of "t didn't matter at all what any of it actually said"....and I really wish I did as it seems to be very important for many who are having a faith crisis.

What I believed in was my tradition, which I supposed my scriptures described in a more obscure way than what I got from the simplified lessons at church. So that hard stuff didn't matter; what did matter was what parents and teachers told me. Whatever the words on the page said meant the same as what I got from Church. Do you understand what I mean?

[halconero]

I think that has a great deal with why God doesn't micromanage the Church more, so that people see the mistakes of its leaders and so end up finally turning to God for the answers rather than relying solely on prophets and other church leaders for their spiritual growth. I personally see church leaders as helping us frame the questions we are supposed to bring to the Lord, not ultimately providing the answers for those questions. Those are for God to give us.

The Prophet Joseph Smith has declared that every man who has come into this Church; and every woman, for that matter, who has received the testimony of the Spirit of the Lord, is a prophet or a prophetess; that every man should be a prophet, because every man in the Church should have the testimony of Jesus which is the spirit of prophecy. - Joseph Fielding Smith

One of the main goals of life should be to become a prophet, entitled to revelation, the discernment of things present and the fore-telling of things to come.

[Calm]

What I believed in was my tradition, which I supposed my scriptures described in a more obscure way than what I got from the simplified lessons at church. So that hard stuff didn't matter; what did matter was what parents and teachers told me. Whatever the words on the page said meant the same as what I got from Church. Do you understand what I mean?

Yes, but it is such a different experience from my own growing up in the Church even though I don't ever remember having a teacher that taught anything in great detail (I might not have remembered it anyway as I tend to pick up more from reading than listening) and in many cases I remember thinking "I know the scriptures better than this person" even as a child. Perhaps my parents were simply more proactive about teaching me to get my own answers. Though it didn't work for my one sister who as far as I can tell has a very closed and limited view of what the Church teaches and has left the Church looking for answers elsewhere to questions she has that seem to me best answered in our faith. Edited July 22, 2013 by calmoriah

[jim_mason]

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I have absolutely zero sympathy with him.

And I know what I am talking about as I have been where he is, as those who know me will readily testify to. So I know the mindset. I know he has deliberately decided to disbelieve for other reasons than the ones he presents, because he will have known about those things for years. He is a fraud in my view.

No I don't buy it. He's a wolf among lambs and he probably always has been.

We learn in the Book of Mormon that Christ suffered so that He might know how to succor His people.

[Danzo]

The church uses history generally to teach lessons on how to behave. They generally focus on the positive examples instead of the negative ones.

I imagine that if you did a survey, more people know about David and Goliath than David and Bathsheba. A casual learner might not even know what happened to Sydney Rigdon or Emma Smith after Joseph's death.

We don't to teach history for history's sake.

We try to emphasize people doing good things rather than people doing bad things. We try to point out the good things and discourage criticizing people in the past as well as in the present. I don't think that is a bad approach, as long as you emphasize that is what you are doing. Often the distinction isn't taught (and wouldn't be understood anyway) in primary, however in the older classes this should be pointed out (some teachers do and some don't). Often the people doing the teaching don't understand this. This is, of course, what you get when you have to rely on volunteers.

Everyone has to learn at one time or another that people (present and past) are not perfect and that they have their weaknesses. Generally you observe it first with people that you know. Only reading history, you realize that people in the past might have their faults also.

Edited July 22, 2013 by Danzo

[Questing Beast]

... I just wonder why he would re interpret his spiritual experiences, I was just pointing out that [Mattsson] seemed to have this experience on his mission that he clings to and so why would he re interpret everything. If the Gospel was true in the 1970's I don't see why it would be untrue today

When perspective changes drastically, the entire history is revised in an instant. What made sense or was acceptable before now means something else was going on. If you had positive experiences that "prayer works" for example, remembering those moments that convinced you that "prayer works" are contrasted with how your "religious world view" is at this moment. Back then you had a different "religious world view", and you came to believe. Now you possibly don't believe at all, or you believe differently, and the memory of those early experiences need to be qualified or redefined. I prayed to God the Father back then, trying always to conceive of what I meant by that title. I had clear answers to prayers, some immediate, and I came to believe in the power of prayer. I still believe in the power of prayer. But I now see it as a gift to all of us, not just those who believe "more of the truth": our prayers are not "more powerful" than any others' prayers. It boils down to faith and honesty. We all pray, all the time, it's just that most of us are not aware that we are praying. That's quite a paradigm shift I have gone through! And I am still a believer, just not exclusively a Mormon believer....

[ERayR]

The thing is, I didn't interpret certain verses at all. I let others interpret things for me, and if there weren't any interpretations, then I certainly didn't feel authorized to invent my own. So those verses were just words, and I never stopped to consider them, or think about what they really meant, or if they suggested something other than what I had grown up thinking. You're right that I didn't "process" them.

You have to understand: I never joined the Church. I'm a cradle Mormon; I was never presented with something new to consider. I only ever had Primary Children stories that grew into gospel doctrine stories, and this text that presumably converts other people to the gospel was just a prop for me. Why did I read it? I was supposed to read it. That was the righteous thing to do. Why would it paint a different picture for me than what my Sunday school teachers presented from their standardized curriculum? They didn't have much to say about polygamy at all, and therefore neither did section 132. My scripture "study" (assisted by all of the correlated cross references and pre-written notes) didn't matter other than being one of those things that the righteous can tick off their checklist: "I read my scriptures." I was holding to the rod, right? And the D&C was a minor player; mostly I spent my time in the Book of Mormon. President Benson put a lot of emphasis on it in those days.

Now, like Brother Mattson and others here, I do have issues with my Church; but mine don't arise from these "problems" in church history, even though I understand the experience of discovering a church other than the one carefully crafted and presented to me in my youth by standardized curriculum. I really rather like the interesting fellow that was Joseph Smith, and I am more inclined to believe that he was prophet material than I am to believe in the business-clad mediocrity which I consider to be the fare of modern times.

I do believe that correlation has been a terrible thing in the Church, and I hope that we get away from it. I think we need our colorful past (and a colorful present!) and not a standardized one. These methods of mass-production schooling have not served the nation well; I wonder why we employ the same ideas at Church in our curriculum. When people don't fit the mold, the realization of it is something like that moment when the hypnotist grants his permission to awaken from the story-land he has made, and the absurdity of the whole episode is opened to the mind of the subject. I think that's what correlation did to us, and I blame it for adding to the difficulties that challenge many who are leaving the Church today. I don't think it's intentionally misleading, just terribly inept and uninspired.

Maybe Brother Mattson was a victim of this correlation, but it's more likely that younger people who formed their ideas of the Church over the past 20-30 years are going to be more affected by it.

That's my opinion, based on what limited observation I can make of myself and others. I don't claim it to be just or well-reasoned, and maybe I am a little bit arrogant and dogmatic in my own ideas.

And you never heard the study, ponder and pray admonition? I was brought up in a semi-active home that for the first part of my life leaned toward inactivity, yet I knew to ponder and pray parts.

[Questing Beast]

The thing is, I didn't interpret certain verses at all. I let others interpret things for me, and if there weren't any interpretations, then I certainly didn't feel authorized to invent my own. So those verses were just words, and I never stopped to consider them, or think about what they really meant, or if they suggested something other than what I had grown up thinking. You're right that I didn't "process" them.

You have to understand: I never joined the Church. I'm a cradle Mormon; I was never presented with something new to consider. I only ever had Primary Children stories that grew into gospel doctrine stories, and this text that presumably converts other people to the gospel was just a prop for me. Why did I read it? I was supposed to read it. That was the righteous thing to do. Why would it paint a different picture for me than what my Sunday school teachers presented from their standardized curriculum? They didn't have much to say about polygamy at all, and therefore neither did section 132. My scripture "study" (assisted by all of the correlated cross references and pre-written notes) didn't matter other than being one of those things that the righteous can tick off their checklist: "I read my scriptures." I was holding to the rod, right? And the D&C was a minor player; mostly I spent my time in the Book of Mormon. President Benson put a lot of emphasis on it in those days.

Now, like Brother Mattson and others here, I do have issues with my Church; but mine don't arise from these "problems" in church history, even though I understand the experience of discovering a church other than the one carefully crafted and presented to me in my youth by standardized curriculum. I really rather like the interesting fellow that was Joseph Smith, and I am more inclined to believe that he was prophet material than I am to believe in the business-clad mediocrity which I consider to be the fare of modern times.

I do believe that correlation has been a terrible thing in the Church, and I hope that we get away from it. I think we need our colorful past (and a colorful present!) and not a standardized one. These methods of mass-production schooling have not served the nation well; I wonder why we employ the same ideas at Church in our curriculum. When people don't fit the mold, the realization of it is something like that moment when the hypnotist grants his permission to awaken from the story-land he has made, and the absurdity of the whole episode is opened to the mind of the subject. I think that's what correlation did to us, and I blame it for adding to the difficulties that challenge many who are leaving the Church today. I don't think it's intentionally misleading, just terribly inept and uninspired.

Maybe Brother Mattson was a victim of this correlation, but it's more likely that younger people who formed their ideas of the Church over the past 20-30 years are going to be more affected by it.

That's my opinion, based on what limited observation I can make of myself and others. I don't claim it to be just or well-reasoned, and maybe I am a little bit arrogant and dogmatic in my own ideas.

If you allowed for signatures under this, I would add mine....

[Questing Beast]

And you never heard the study, ponder and pray admonition? I was brought up in a semi-active home that for the first part of my life leaned toward inactivity, yet I knew to ponder and pray parts.

I thought I was doing it. Then I decided that I had not seriously considered my religion enough: I embarked on a study "program", or quest, to know Jesus Christ, and the place to start was with a study of the "prophet of the restoration", since it seemed logical to me that JS would be "a man after the Lord's own heart" too, and I could discover Jesus Christ more readily by studying the life and teachings of his prophet. I extended this study to include BY, since I have always admired BY. I "searched, pondered and prayed" as entirely focused as I have been able to muster up to this point in my life. And the result is like Mattsson for me, and for about as long: I got "started" on my doubting admission to myself about a year earlier is all....

[pmccombs1]

And you never heard the study, ponder and pray admonition? I was brought up in a semi-active home that for the first part of my life leaned toward inactivity, yet I knew to ponder and pray parts.

Study, ponder, pray: I never really knew what those things meant. They were actions to be done, and so we had actions that meant those things. They were empty. They were things that confirmed what I already knew. Only at the threshold of crisis, it seems, do those words gain any meaning.

Edited July 22, 2013 by pmccombs1

[ERayR]

Study, ponder, pray: I never really new what those things meant. They were actions to be done, and so we had actions that meant those things. They were empty. They were things that confirmed what I already knew. Only at the threshold of crisis, it seems, do those words gain any meaning.

You seem to have either forgotten your anchor point or have never gotten one. My anchor point is the spiritual confirmation I received of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the gospel. (Personal Revelation, if you will). If you anchor to that and allow yourself a large collections of unknowns for which you are seeking answers ( you always have a large number of unknowns regardless of which paradigm you espouse) then you should be OK.

Edited July 22, 2013 by ERayR

[teddyaware]

Study, ponder, pray: I never really new what those things meant. They were actions to be done, and so we had actions that meant those things. They were empty. They were things that confirmed what I already knew. Only at the threshold of crisis, it seems, do those words gain any meaning.

Perhaps I'm a bit dense, but could you please explain to me what new meaning the words 'study, ponder and pray' take on when viewed while one is standing "at the threshold of crisis?"

[cinepro]

You seem to have either forgotten your anchor point or have never gotten one. My anchor point is the spiritual confirmation I received of the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the gospel. (Personal Revelation, if you will). If you anchor to that and allow yourself a large collections of unknowns for which you are seeking answers ( you always have a large number of unknowns regardless of which paradigm you espouse) then you should be OK.

I agree.

It is my theory that there is a key point in the journey of every "doubting" LDS (and probably any other religions as well).

This key point is the moment that they honestly open their mind to one single thought:

"There is a chance that the Church isn't true."

Once this happens, if the doubter opens themselves up to questions about methodology and inquiry (for example, analyzing the ways in which they have traditionally tried to determine the "truthfulness" of the Church and whether or not those ways are the most reliable), the road can get very, very rocky.

But if the anchor holds fast and it is never sincerely considered that the Church might not be true, than no amount of information or anything else will ever put a testimony in danger.

So the key is to try and keep people from ever having that thought.

[phaedrus ut]

I agree.

It is my theory that there is a key point in the journey of every "doubting" LDS (and probably any other religions as well).

This key point is the moment that they honestly open their mind to one single thought:

"There is a chance that the Church isn't true."

Once this happens, if the doubter opens themselves up to questions about methodology and inquiry (for example, analyzing the ways in which they have traditionally tried to determine the "truthfulness" of the Church and whether or not those ways are the most reliable), the road can get very, very rocky.

But if the anchor holds fast and it is never sincerely considered that the Church might not be true, than no amount of information or anything else will ever put a testimony in danger.

So the key is to try and keep people from ever having that thought.

I've seen many people explain it just like you. They were using complex theories and stories to maintain belief in BoM historicity, the BoA, Polygamy, etc... One day they compared the Rube Goldberg machine they constructed to maintain their belief against another simple explanation and it all just clicked in their mind.

What happened in Sweden is happening in the rest of Europe and the United States. The transcript of the Q&A with Jensen and Turley shows how completely unprepared the church is to handle these questions directly.

Phaedrus

[pmccombs1]

You seem to have either forgotten your anchor point or have never gotten one.

It's possible. I have had spiritual witnesses regarding the Church, to be sure. Some of them felt very strong when I received them (and I remember them), but their ardor does fade over time unless relentlessly cultivated according to the formula. We also tend to recall things differently and form new ideas and opinions as we age. For instance, in my current situation, I don't see myself as ever having been particularly inspired by the Church for more than small stretches at a time, and far between at that. But a decade ago, a more faithful version of me would have reported a different opinion of my own past experience with the Church. So recollections change, as do the experiences themselves, depending on whatever our current point of view happens to be.

Once, in a "vision," I was delivered from mortal peril and the Lord spoke to me from a can of Vienna sausages. Silly, isn't it? Sillier than a burning bush, I contend. And yet, my heart did burn, as if it would consume me; I believed so powerfully. That dream was more real to me than waking reality, but it was just an odd dream like I sometimes get. Years later, while on this journey to discover the Anchor you speak of, I asked myself: If I could feel the Spirit so powerfully in such a silly and (I thought) obviously wrong context, how can I know that this same confirming witness is legitimate in other contexts? What is the test that says when this sublime feeling of "sure witness" is appropriate, and when it isn't? That's a very sticky problem when you get into the casuistry of it.

I had seen a hypnotist explain about how the mind is prepared to enter into narratives (synopsis: fear not, only believe!), and I watched him call forth joy, sadness, and even responses from empirical senses. He said that it hardly required a hypnotist, or overt hypnotism, to enter these mental states and that we do it all the time without knowing. Could these remarkable, realer-than-real witnesses I and others had experienced be a result of mental processes? Could they be the natural results of desire and willingness, like that hypnotherapist said? It seems very plausible to me.

Because of that experience, I became interested in people who had spiritual witnesses, but not for LDS truths. I sought out and became acquainted with people who had followed this same Spirit into the Catholic faith, or the Pentecostal faith, or various Evangelical denominations... They all had divinely-appointed anchor points, but not mine. And so I began to look for justification for myself. Is the Spirit that keeps me in the Mormon faith any more justified than the alleged Spirit that is drawing people to these other places, or away from the Church altogether, sometimes? Is there some measuring stick for the Spirit, to know when it is right? And if there is, how do we know? "Ask God, who giveth liberally," it is said, only there is no way to reliably justify that one's Godly answer has been given by... God.

If there is no justification outside of the personal and subjective (I suspect that there isn't), then am I allowing myself to enter into the narratives that really, truly connect with me and move me into action? Or is it simply the pull of tradition that has kept me engaged within this particular faith narrative?

This is the source of my skepticism: That I have since found what strike me as truths elsewhere, and my Church does not seem to comprehend them. I begin to imagine what a True church would be like in my own estimation (audacious!), and my witness follows suit. I begin to have these "spiritual" experiences as I study agnosticism, Buddhism, Catholicism, my own Mormon scriptures, and so forth.

I once didn't know what it meant to study, ponder, and pray; but when I came to myself and began to reject the "non-thought of received ideas," my studies, meditations, and prayers became genuine acts. Alas, they have not resulted in a Holy Ghost that cares very much about propping up the Church and its various authority claims. I get other answers. They aren't any more justified, or justifiable, than what I had before, but they please me because they feel right. Perhaps I have gone astray in following what seems good to me. Whatever the case may be, at least when I stand to be judged, I can be judged for being me instead of some extension of a gospel manual/blueprint that a distant authority said I ought to follow.

Well, that's a bit of a stretch from Brother Mattson, but it's something of my own trek in the wilderness. Maybe it will end up back at the Church doors. Who is to say? Others have taken that path before. I hope not to be too much of a wolf, and certainly I keep quiet about it at church. Maybe I shouldn't be there among the faithful, though. Sometimes I worry about it.

[cinepro]

What happened in Sweden is happening in the rest of Europe and the United States. The transcript of the Q&A with Jensen and Turley shows how completely unprepared the church is to handle these questions directly.

Phaedrus

The real tragedy, for me personally, is that the Church should be very prepared. These issues have been being discussed online for the last 10-15 years, and offline for even longer. The growth of the internet and the spread of information was easy to see 10 years ago.

I hate to say "I told you so", but I have been saying this was coming for 10 years, as have many others with much louder voices. The only reason the Church wouldn't be prepared is because they wouldn't listen; many people have only responded with "All is well."

It's not like the someone discovered Joseph Smith's secret journal two weeks ago and found some damaging information and then the internet was suddenly invented last week and so the Church was blindsided. If the Church is "unprepared", it is only because of complacency and willful ignorance.

[phaedrus ut]

The real tragedy, for me personally, is that the Church should be very prepared. These issues have been being discussed online for the last 10-15 years, and offline for even longer. The growth of the internet and the spread of information was easy to see 10 years ago.

I think the problem has been to leave this questions to independent 3rd parties so all answers will remain unofficial. In doing so there seems to be a bit of institutional ignorance about the problematic information that is causing members doubts. That's probably why it's Terryl Givens doing the Q&A now.

Even though it's more that I've ever heard of another location getting, I can see how the Swedish members were still disappointed. Nephi murdered someone rather than let a "whole nation dwindle in unbelief" yet the best the nation of Sweden could get was to have Turley white board a Q&A session? Nephi left his mission wearing someone else's bloody clothes. I bet these guys didn't even have to fly coach back home.

Phaedrus

[pmccombs1]

Perhaps I'm a bit dense, but could you please explain to me what new meaning the words 'study, ponder and pray' take on when viewed while one is standing "at the threshold of crisis?"

When one takes everything for granted, "study, ponder, and pray" is rote. It's how you confirm the truths, right? When one already accepts them as givens, it's difficult to be invested in the work of self-conversion. What does it mean to study? I should read my scriptures, so I do. What does it mean to ponder? I should think about how blessed I am and wonder at the glory of the restored gospel, but I don't really have any burning questions or worries about it. How about prayer? I'm supposed to ask if it's all true, but I already know it is. So I'll just say my regular prayers today.

Then the crisis appears and one doubts what was once taken for granted. Now the direction to, "study, ponder, and pray," takes on a whole new meaning, because it is driven by an inner need. It becomes more than just rote. The honest seeker begins to take it seriously--that is the new meaning of it. The scriptures are searched, and attention is given to what they say instead of what has been assumed that they mean. Pondering is now something that is full of questions and unknowns. Praying is done in desperation, "Please, Lord, give me something, anything to hang on to." But the whole test of faith is flavored by that awful balance of hope and doubt.

At least, that is my experience. Maybe it is uncommon.