Real Life in Jesus Christ's Church

Like many of you, I read with interest Jeffrey Lindsay’s articles, “Dealing with ‘Friendly Fire’ on the Book of Abraham,” August 26 and 27, 2019. I thank him for his reasoned knowledge and faith-filled voice.  I think the Book of Abraham is a banquet table piled high with nutritious and delicious foods. I don’t have to know the origin of every ingredient to enjoy a replenishing, spiritual feast. The exact provenance trail for the Book of Abraham will come when it comes. In the meantime, I choose to learn from the text and be edified by Abraham’s words, works, and life.  In 2010-11, I typed the text of the Book of Mormon and in that process identified fifty-seven unique vocabularies ( The Book of Mormon Is True ,  Evidences and Insights , Covenant Communications, 2015). When I finished, I began to think about the Pearl of Great Price. Since Joseph Smith was the instrument through whom everything in the Pearl of Great Price came—the Book of Moses, the Book of Abraham, the inspired

            In 1985, I wrote a book titled:  Is Anyone Out There Building Mother’s Self-Esteem?  The thesis is that if anyone is building mother’s self-esteem, she is doing it herself. I am walking back my connection to the self-esteem theory that was so popular in the Seventies, Eighties, and Nineties. I know mothers need to take care of themselves and symbolically put on their own oxygen masks before their children’s, but I do not believe self-esteem is the solution I did when I wrote the book. Today I think of self-esteem as a worldly philosophy rooted in the great and spacious building. The theory purported that children would have high self-esteem if their parents and teachers 1) showered them with enthusiastic and unconditional praise and 2) protected them from criticism and negative consequences of their behavior. The  expected outcome was that children would internalize these positive affirmations and build successful lives. Well, it didn’t work very well. Effusive praise