Francine Bennion - A Latter-day Saint Theology of Suffering and other writings
Francine Bennion - "A Latter-day Saint Theology of Suffering"
“We were willing to know hurt. Like Christ, we did not agree to come only if God would make everyone bow to us and respect us, or admire us and understand us. Like Christ, we came to be ourselves, addressing and creating reality. We are finding out who we are and who we can become regardless of immediate environment or circumstances.”
“Our birth is evidence of courage and faith, not helplessness, shame, and disobedience, and yet we must make sense of conflicting reports about it, seemingly contradictory fragments about it. If we are to make sense of them, we had better understand well the implications of those brief fragments we have about our existence before human life began.”
“The wonder is that Lucifer’s intended universe is exactly the universe many now attribute to God, or want from him.”
“In wanting to get to the celestial kingdom, these students had more awareness of traditional struggle-free utopias than of our own God and our own world. The celestial kingdom was a place to get away from suffering, not a place to understand it and address it in ways consistent with joy and love and agency.”
Francine Bennion - “LDS Working Mothers” “A woman who must work will be happiest if she has prepared herself for a job of her own choosing.”
Francine Bennion - “Women and Roles: Transcending Definitions” - “I do believe that if we are to live well, we must learn to understand ourselves and each other as live agents, not merely as place-takers or role-players.”
Francine Bennion - “How and Where is Intellect Needed?”
“Christ recognizes the seeming contradictions, the constant tension between opposites in this life, even tension between two “goods”—not just the tension between good and evil, but tensions between the very matters of existence.”
“That pattern repeatedly suggests that for Christ the ways in which his people perceived things and their opposites were not necessarily the only ways or even the most useful ways.”
“Even when two men are given the same vision, they don’t see entirely the same thing.”
“I like the fact that when Nephi was shown a vision, the angel did not say, “This is how it is. You do this and this and this. And this is what is going on.” Instead the angel says repeatedly, “Look!”
Additional Comments:
Christ flipped the thinking upside down
Obedience vs. personal revelation - complementary not synonymous
Does suffering bring us closer to Christ? Or can it push us further away?
It’s an additional layer of suffering if you don’t let the suffering consecrate or sanctify you.
How do we help others who are suffering but not quite ready to draw close to Christ?
Don’t try to give an answer - just sit with them
Will people feel our prayers? Yes.
What if the people who are suffering are more blessed because of what it does for them?
Books Mentioned:
Gifts From the Sea by Anne Morrow Lindbergh - “I do not believe that sheer suffering teaches. If suffering alone taught, all the world would be wise, since everyone suffers. To suffering must be added mourning, understanding, patience, love, openness, and the willingness to remain vulnerable.”
The Problem of Pain by C.S. Lewis - “Even if there were pains in Heaven, all who understand would desire them. When we want to be something other than the thing God wants us to be, we must be want, what in fact, will not make us happy.”
Infidel by Ayaan Hirsi Ali
Left to Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwandan Holocaust by Immaculee Ilibagiza
Podcasts: Leading Saints with guest Josh Coates; Latter-day Saint Women with Kate Holbrook on Francine Bennion;
Additional Talks: Neal A. Maxwell, “Swallowed Up in the Will of the Father”