This lesson is a wonderful collection of some of Joseph’s most revealing “autobiographical” statements. I’ll simply take up each section in turn, offering reflections. Read the rest of this entry »

I found this lesson to be… well… odd. I think it gathers together some very nice statements, but it is more given to what one might call form than to what one might call content. That is, when I got to the end of the lesson, I felt inspired to focus more of my efforts directly on the work of the kingdom, but I found that I could not—on the resources of the lesson alone—answer the question, “What is the work of the kingdom?” I could, of course, provide my own answers to that question, and I could tell myself that all the previous lessons in the manual should be understood to be (at least) a set of resources for answering that question, but I nonetheless found—and still find!—the question somewhat unsettling. And I think the reason is this: the vision Joseph provides in the teachings gathered into this lesson is so much larger than any description of the work I could provide in answer to the question.

So let me suggest that this lesson presents a kind of massive, perhaps unanswerable question, in the end: How do we make sense of the lack of balance between the vision of the Kingdom as Joseph presents it and the way we talk about the Church as a day-to-day work? With that question constantly in mind, I’ll offer some notes on the lesson (jumping right over the “From the Life” part of the lesson). Read the rest of this entry »