Outside the Blog -- by Jon Young

Dear President Waite, President Cragun, and President Jannuzzi,

Thank you so much for your letter concerning Peter. We've been very blessed with the generosity and kindness of many ward members. Many have been compassionate listeners who share our grief and this has done more than anything else to bring us comfort and bolster our faith. We are happy with the success of his recent surgery that allowed his lungs to expand enough to breath without a machine forcing air into a hole in his neck. The hole was closed a few weeks ago and he is now breathing on his own. Last Sunday was his first day at church and there will be many more to come.

There are still more difficulties for our family to go through. His digestion has not worked properly since the surgery and a hernia in his small intestine was discovered. He seems to be in a lot of pain lately for a reason we don't know. Furthermore, he will need to go through the ordeal of his chest surgery again as his implants cannot grow with him.

While we do suffer emotionally, we also consider it a privilege to have such a unique experience where we have a great opportunity to apply the values and principles of the Gospel. We know that in some rare situations it is not very clear which values and principles best apply. When a child like Peter is born with a chromosomal defect leading to blindness, severe mental retardation, and too numerous to recite (or even know of) expensive medical problems (about $1M so far and counting), the initial emotional tendency to do all you can to fight for the life of your child isn't sufficient justification for actually doing it. We have an entire human family to be concerned for and a limited amount of effort we can all physically apply to serve our needs. Are large amounts of these efforts best spent on a child who, to the best of our knowledge, has already fulfilled all he can do in this life by the plan of salvation?

When seeking to find others to help shoulder the burden of the situation, we've been troubled to some extent from well-meaning ward and family members who are similarly troubled by our seeming lack of caring. I'm sure there is a lesson there for both people seeking to share a burden and those hearing one. Regardless, we are confident knowing that we are doing our best to think, pray, and receive divine inspiration to do what is best for Peter and everyone. We take comfort in the policy of the church handbook:

21.3.8 Prolonging Life
"When severe illness strikes, members should exercise faith in the Lord and seek competent medical assistance. However, when dying becomes inevitable, it should be seen as a blessing and a purposeful part of eternal existence. Members should not feel obligated to extend mortal life by means that are unreasonable. These judgments are best made by family members after receiving wise and competent medical advice and seeking divine guidance through fasting and prayer."

Dying has been inevitable for Peter since day one without heroic and expensive medical efforts. Given our intimate knowledge of Peter's condition and the needs of others, we continue to make the best judgments we can. We continue to find strength and joy in the association of the spirit, family, and fellow church members who share our burden and lighten our load.

Sincerely,

Jon Young

This is a book by President Henry B Eyring's dad who was an accomplished chemist. The out of print book was given to me by a church institute instructor who was cleaning out the institute's library. I was intrigued by it at the time because my introductory classes in biology and physics were opening up new ways of thinking that were in conflict with my previous notions about the nature of God, man, and how we know things. According to Dr. Eyring, "God is so gentle, so dedicated to the principle that men should be taught correct principles and then govern themselves, that they should take responsibility for their own mistakes, that His children can actually question whether He exists" and that "our opportunity to grow would cease if freedom of choice were withheld." Whether one believes God has designed this situation or not, it's hard for anyone to claim the search for Truth does not exist and is not a matter of personal responsibility.

As might be expected, his approach toward truth is that science and religion are completely compatible. Well, most people claiming to be religious will claim that. What's unique is how he bridges the gap. He presents the idea that scientific and religious knowledge can be arrived at in very similar and pragmatic ways: "Try it. Does it work?" Similar to Physicist Richard Feynman, he divides religious and scientific knowledge into the types of questions that they can answer. Science takes on questions of how things work and religion takes on the questions of the value of things. Both types of questions are searched and answered best by individuals in a non-superstitions and methodical manner.

Unlike some, he is also very comfortable with the fact that human knowledge is fractured and incomplete. He'd agree that life is a wonderful experience of learning and growth and could not be if we were just handed perfect knowledge. To demonstrate his comfort with mystery, he muses about the paradoxes of our "principled" knowledge. For example, he compares the "competing" notions that light is both a particle and a wave and that God is both an exalted being and yet has influence that fills the entire universe. These ideas seem to conflict and many people are uncomfortable not having a wonderfully complete and unified description of truth. These conflicts are limitations to human understanding that he invites readers to reconcile.

In the search for Truth, Dr. Eyring briefly touches on the fallacies we run into when citing authoritative figures and the sometimes false statements we attribute to them. Many will find this uncomfortable, especially concerning church leaders, but unavoidable as we learn new things that appear to conflict with what we thought our leaders taught. Dr. Eyring gives a simple and obvious example: "If in his speculations the Prophet [Joseph Smith] thought there were people on the moon, this has no effect on my belief that on other occasions, when the Lord willed it, he spoke the ideas that the Lord inspired him to say. It is for these moments of penetrating insight that I honor and follow him...The Gospel is not the people of the church. The Gospel is not even the people who direct it. The Gospel is the Truth."

Truth is not given to us by any other person as a free handout. Rather, we have the freedom and responsibility to discover Truth for ourselves.

Lillie's been in kindergarten and learning basic math. Sheri and I have been teaching her some basic math as well. A few weeks ago, I brought up the idea of squaring a number. I explained that to square something was to add that number to itself the same number of times as it's value. We demonstrated the concept with numbers 0, 1, 2, and 3. We used finger counting to help keep track of the multiplication. She seemed to understand pretty well.

A few nights ago, I decided to test her knowledge. "Lillie, what's five squared?" "Ten" she answered. "No, that's addition," I explained and then briefly described what squaring is. I then asked her again, "What is five squared?" At this she turned around holding out her fingers as if to hide that she was counting them. "Oh no, this is going to be a huge failure and it's my fault," I thought. Does she think the answer will fit in both hands? What will she do when she get's to ten? She began to count: "1, 2, 3 . . . 9, 10, 11." Right now I'm thinking, "Eleven? What's she doing?" I suppose she's starting over on her same fingers--duh. Finally she completes the sequence, " . . . 22, 23, 24, 25." She turns around and says with a smile, "Twenty-Five!?"

Even with all the immature things kids do, their mental abilities often impress.