Righteous
Traditions—Cheryl C. Lant
I.
What is a tradition? What do you think of when you think
of traditions?
Tradition:
Tradition:
1.
The handing down of
statements, beliefs, legends, customs, information, etc. from generation to
generation, esp. by word of mouth or by practice
2.
Something that is
handed down
3.
A long-established
or inherited way of thinking or acting
4.
A continuing pattern
of culture beliefs or practices
5.
A customary of
characteristic method or manner
The first thing that I think of is my family’s Christmas
traditions. I asked around a little bit this week, and it seemed like most of
the answers I got were those types of answers—big holiday things. But
traditions don’t have to be something big. They just have to be something that
we do repeatedly, whether they’re done yearly, monthly, weekly, or even daily.
They even include the way that we do things.
Another thing that I thought of for traditions was my
brother-in-law, Scott, who is perhaps one of the most frugal people ever. He
doesn’t spend money that he doesn’t need to spend. He is a coupon master, and
he and my sisters have even started a new tradition called “Find of the Week”
where they post on their blog some cool find, like when they got $110 worth of
stuff from Sears for $14. This is something that he learned from his dad, and
its’ something that I’m sure he’ll pass onto his kids.
Another tradition: in my family, when someone leaves, pretty
much everyone who is at home goes to the window nearest him or her and signs “I
love you” as the person drives away.
II.
Do traditions matter?
Alma 36:6-7
Sister Lant says, “Are the
traditions that we are creating in our families going to make it easier for our
children to follow the living prophets, or will they make it difficult for
them?”
I think it’s important to think about how we will
affect not only our children but also our friends, our siblings, even people we
might not realize we’re affecting.
What are some ways that we
might make it difficult for our children to follow the prophets?
This makes me think of Kareena’s talk, when she quoted
from Michael Wilcox, about cows and fence. It’s the full-grown cows who kick
holes in the fence, but it’s the babies who go through and get stuck outside.
“I noticed while taking
care of the cattle as a boy that more often than not the cows did not go
through the holes they had created in the fence, but they calves did. Often it
would be half-starved and bawling to get back inside the fence next to the
mother. The calves seemed to know how to escape through the holes the older
cattle had made, but rarely did they know how to step back through those holes.
If they were not found, sometimes they died.
“This is the true tragedy
of grass licking obedience to the standards and counsels of the Church. Parents
must be careful in their own pushing of the limits not to create holes that
their children will slip through. Compromising, for example, on the types of
movies we watch maybe create a hole that our children will crawl through to
their own destruction. One generation’s exception becomes the next generation’s
rule, as standards of behavior deteriorate. If the cows had stayed in the
center of the meadow, no calf would have ever been lost.” (S. Michael Wilcox, Don’t Leap with the Sheep, and Other
Scriptural Strategies for Avoiding Satan’s Snares)
Here’s a negative example: Before my parents got divorced, my family
didn’t watch General Conference and attending stake conference was hit and
miss. I don’t think I was aware of the message that was sending me, but looking
back, it certainly wasn’t telling me that General Conference or listening to
the prophets was important.
What are some ways that we might make it easier for our
children to follow the prophets?
My mom taught
me, though what she did, that you accept callings and you do your best. If
anyone had an excuse to turn down a calling, I think it was her. The bishop was
even reluctant to call her to be the YW president because she was a single mom,
working to be able to provide for her family, she taught seminary, and she was
just plain busy. And maybe you could guess this from having met me, but we were
not an easy bunch of kids to rear. But she did it—she was in YW longer than I
was.
III.
Where do traditions come from?
Who here has a tradition that
you don’t even remember how it started? (the “I love you” sign as
someone leaves home—no idea how that started)
Has anyone ever accidentally
started a tradition? (I had to speak at my high school graduation and I
didn’t like the traditional opening for the speeches—it thanked a bunch of men
and no women—so I changed the greeting; 8 years later at my little brother’s
graduation, my greeting was the one being used.)
Does anyone have a tradition
that you’ve deliberately started?
Sister Lant says, “What
kinds of traditions do we have? Some of them may have come from our fathers,
and now we are passing them along to our own children. Are they what we want
them to be? Are they based on actions of righteousness and faith? Are they
mostly material in nature, or are they eternal? Are we consciously creating
righteous traditions, or is life just happening to us? Are our traditions being
created in response to the loud voices of the world, or are they influenced by
the still, small voice of the Spirit?
There are two things in that paragraph that really
stand out to me. First, “Are we consciously creating traditions?” I think it’s
fine that some traditions happen accidentally or we just sort of drift into
them. But some things, the most important things, probably need to be
deliberate. It’s by small and simple means that great things are brought to
pass, and with our traditions, most of which are probably pretty small, we have
an opportunity to bring about great things. At the same time, I think Satan
knows the potential for good in our traditions, and since he knows our greatest
happiness is found in family life, he is very deliberately seeking to destroy
our families. And he tailors it to each of us, to each of our families. If we
are going to fight against him and not let him win, shouldn’t we be even more
deliberate and conscientious about what we will and will not do?
The other thing that stood out to me was, “Are they
influenced by the still, small voice of the Spirit?” As we are trying to help
our families to establish righteous traditions, as we are fighting against
Satan, we need to be following the Spirit. The Spirit will help us take the
principles we’re taught and turn them into reality in our families. The way
that my family does something may not be the same way that someone else’s does,
and maybe we’ll even get frustrated sometimes because we want to do something
that another family or another person is doing and it just doesn’t seem to work
for us. But if we will listen to the Spirit, we will receive help and guidance
and know what to try for our families.
IV.
What’s the practical application? Where do we even start?
The Family Proclamation says, “Happiness in family
is most likely to be achieved when founded upon the teachings of the Lord Jesus
Christ. Successful marriages and families are established and maintained on
principles of faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion,
work, and wholesome recreational activities.”
This gives us a guideline for the types of traditions we need to try to
have in our families. We need to deliberately, and through the guidance of the
Spirit, figure out traditions that will teach these principles.
Sister Lant says, “I would invite all of us
to take a moment to reflect on the traditions in our lives and how they might
be affecting our families. Our traditions of Sabbath day observance, family
prayer, family scripture study, service and activity in the Church, as well as
patterns of respect and loyalty in the home, will have a great effect on our
children and on their future.”
We don’t need to wait until we have children to do these things. We can
think about the things that we want for our families; we should think about
them now. None of us will magically get married and be a perfect spouse or
mother. But we can learn now, we can practice now. If I want my kids to attend
church, I should make sure I attend church. I need to be living what I want
them to live. And we can start now to think about what we want for our children
and how to incorporate that into our families.
I was thinking last week about how I’d like to put together a collection
of my favorite talks for each of the members of the First Presidency and the
Apostles. And then I was thinking that I’d like my children to love the General
Authorities and how I could help them do that, and I thought maybe for FHE, we
could spend a month studying teach of them and then try to work on our
collections of talks that are meaningful to us. And then this week, I decided
to try it out. I asked a friend of mine to do this with me, so we’re starting
with President Monson for the month of August, and each week of the month, we’re
going to find a talk of his that we enjoy and share them. And I don’t know how
well it will work, and maybe after one week we’ll want to change how we do it,
and I’ll probably have to adjust it again when I actually have kids, but in the
meantime, I’m trying to do what I can to prepare.
V.
Testimony
I know that Satan is real and that
he is fighting against us. But I also know that God is real and that He has
given us ways to fight against Satan, and establishing righteous traditions is
one thing that God has given us to help us and our families and our friends.
The Lord wants us to succeed and He will help us. There were certainly be
discouraging times along the way, when we feel like things aren’t working or
our family isn’t getting what we’re trying to each anyway, and we’ll wonder if
it matters anyway. It does matter. We are daughters of God, and we have a special
role to play on this earth, and we, who are blessed to have the Gospel in our
lives, have the responsibility and the ability to share those blessings with
our families and with the world. Let us conscientiously and deliberately follow
the Spirit and make sure we’re passing along the habits and messages and
traditions that we want to be passing along.
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