As part of my calling as our ward’s clerk, I am required to write an article once a year for the ward newsletter.

Below is my article for September 2018

Speak No Evil – Be Gentle to All

Nearly two thousand years ago, Paul taught the saints at Ephesus regarding how they are to treat one another:

“Let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but that which is good to the use of edifying, that it may minister grace unto the hearers.

“And grieve not the holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption.

“Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamour, and evil speaking, be put away from you, with all malice:

“And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.” (Eph. 4:29)

Almost two thousand years later, Elder Neal A. Maxwell of the Quorum of the Twelve expounded on Paul’s teachings: 

“Paul admonished the followers of Christ ‘to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, shewing all meekness unto all men’ (Titus 3:2). ‘Now I Paul myself beseech you by the meekness and gentleness of Christ, who in presence am base among you, but being absent am bold toward you’ (2 Cor. 10:1). John declared: ‘For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world’ (1 Jn. 2:16).

“Heavenly power can be accessed only by those who are Christlike it is a power whose continued availability is maintained by meekness along with the other virtues. Nor can we have the loving empathy or understanding mercy necessary for true discipleship without meekness.” (Neal A. Maxwell, “Meek and Lowly,” Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1987, 85.)

It can be a natural thing to speak out of turn and criticize another person or action, but we’re admonished in the scriptures that “the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19)

This week is the anniversary of the birth of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, and there have been a number of articles published about his work. In a letter to Friedrich Schiller, Goethe wrote the following on the inclination towards criticism and cynicism that seems to permeate our society today: “I am more and more convinced that whenever one has to vent an opinion on the actions or on the writings of others, unless this be done from a certain one-sided enthusiasm, or from a loving interest in the person and the work, the result is hardly worth gathering up. Sympathy and enjoyment in what we see is in fact the only reality, and, from such reality, reality as a natural product follows. All else is vanity.” (Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, letter to Friedrich Schiller from the spring of 1796, translated by George H. Calvert, “Correspondence Between Schiller and Goethe, Vol. 1: From 1794 to 1805”)

We can follow the admonition to be kind to all that is found throughout the scriptures and throughout the teachings of our modern prophets and apostles to be kind to all and not harm anyone through our words or actions. We need to put aside the negativity that seems to infuse every news article and social media post. We can be unified in the faith and speak no evil and be kind and gentle to all. We can eschew judgment and allow all the benefit of the doubt, because we’re all struggling, we all have bad days, and times when we’re not at our best and it seems that those are the times when we face the potential to harm another’s feelings. It don’t think that this is a coincidence. It seems easy to be kind when our lives are going well, but the test is to be kind when life hits a bump or seems to be going off the rails.

Negativity seems to come from judging others and Elder Dieter F. Uchtdorf addressed the topic of kind words and judging others in a Conference talk from 2012: “This topic of judging others could actually be taught in a two-word sermon. When it comes to hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm, please apply the following:

“Stop it!

“It’s that simple. We simply have to stop judging others and replace judgmental thoughts and feelings with a heart full of love for God and His children. God is our Father. We are His children. We are all brothers and sisters.” (Dieter F. Uchtdorf, “The Merciful Obtain Mercy,” GC, Apr. 2012)

Let us follow the Savior and remember who we are and love one another and treat one another as the valued and loved sons and daughters of a Heavenly Father that loves all of His children and wants us to love one another as He so loves us.