"I Am A Professional": Tanner Talks About Catching His First Pop Fly

Now I Know My ABCs

Tanner's First Base Hit

Elder Boyd K. Packer on the subject of faith:

Faith, to be faith, must center around something that is not known. Faith, to be faith, must go beyond that for which there is confirming evidence. Faith, to be faith, must go into the unknown. Faith, to be faith, must walk to the edge of the light, and then a few steps into the darkness. If everything has to be known, if everything has to be explained, if everything has to be certified, then there is no need for faith. Indeed, there is no room for it…

There are two kinds of faith. One of them functions ordinarily in the life of every soul. It is the kind of faith born by experience; it gives us certainty that a new day will dawn, that spring will come, that growth will take place. It is the kind of faith that relates us with confidence to that which is scheduled to happen. . . .

There is another kind of faith, rare indeed. This is the kind of faith that causes things to happen. It is the kind of faith that is worthy and prepared and unyielding, and it calls forth things that otherwise would not be. It is the kind of faith that moves people. It is the kind of faith that sometimes moves things. Few men posses it. It comes by gradual growth. It is a marvelous, even a transcendent, power, a power as real and as invisible as electricity. Directed and channeled, it has great effect.

But faith must be faith. One man tried ‘experimenting’ with faith. He had spoken of his certainty that an event would transpire, and his desires were not brought to pass; the event he so much yearned for did not happen. Afterward, his bitter comment was, ‘Well, you see, it didn’t happen. I didn’t think it would.’

In a world filled with skepticism and doubt, the expression ‘seeing is believing’ promotes the attitude, ‘You show me, and I will believe.’ [In our weakness] we want all of the proof and all of the evidence first. It seems hard to take things on faith.

[We must learn] that in spiritual things it works the other way about—that believing is seeing. Spiritual belief precedes spiritual knowledge. When we believe in things that are not seen but are nevertheless true, then we have faith”

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland on the subject of hope:

Elder Holland: Life in every era has had its troubles. Surely the Dark Ages were appropriately named, and not one of us is anxious to be transported back even to those later years of, say, the Hundred Years’ War or the Black Plague. No, we’re quite happy to have been born in a century of unprecedented material blessings and abundant living; yet in community after community, in small nations and large, we see individuals and families facing heightened anxiety and fear. It would seem that discouragement, depression, and despair are our contemporary “Black Plague.” Ours is, as Jesus said it would be, a time of distress with perplexity (see Luke 21:25)…

There is an increasing feeling that time is out of joint, that no one seems wise enough or strong enough to set it right. In many cases, governments are in office but not in power, community values and neighborhood pride are often superficial or nonexistent, and too frequently the home is an alarming failure.

Furthermore, many of the social and political medicines of our day regularly miss the mark, so those would-be physicians stand by the bedside of “feverish and delirious humanity—outwitted, discredited, dumbfounded … not knowing in which direction to seek delivered” (Charles Edward Jefferson, The Character of Jesus, Salt Lake City: Parliament Publishers, 1968, p. 17).

If I may be so bold this morning, may I suggest “direction for deliverance”? In words of one syllable, we need to turn to God. We need to reaffirm our faith, and we need to reassert our hope. Where necessary we need to repent, and certainly we need to pray. It is the absence of spiritual fidelity that has led us to moral disarray in the twilight of the twentieth century. We have sown the wind of religious skepticism, and we are reaping the whirlwind of existential despair.

Without our religious faith, without recognizing the reality and necessity of spiritual life, the world makes no sense, and a nonsense world is a place of horror. Only if the world has meaning at a spiritual level is it possible for human beings to keep going, to keep trying. As Hamlet so wisely implored, so should we: “Angels and ministers of grace defend us!” (act 1, scene 4, line 39).

Last Christmas I bought a nativity scene for Tanner (then age 5) and Jordyn (then age 2). It was a study in contrasts to watch how each child played with the figures. Tanner immediately began to assemble the pieces to mirror the picture on the box. Then, somewhat to his dismay, Jordyn promptly proceeded to disassemble his work, carrying baby Jesus throughout the house the remainder of the day. Jesus was found at the dinner table, in a crib at naptime and in a makeshift rodeo grounds with charging bulls. He made His way to the back of a dump truck and lounged in His swaddling clothes near the pool.

The family left for a trip to Oregon the following day. As I walked back into their house, I surveyed the living room with all of its gift opening aftermath. Tanner had cleaned up his toys on parental orders, but he had left the nativity scene on the table, having returned all the pieces. I stood alone in the house, a sweet reverence filling the room as I marveled at a child's understanding and handiwork. Every figure had been positioned in a perfect circle outside the manger except one. Baby Jesus had been placed within so that all could look upon Him.

My heart was overcome with tenderness as I realized both children had it right: Jordyn had been wise enough to take Jesus with her wherever she went; her older brother had lovingly put Christ at the center.