Writing Our Own Life's Script
Every so often, we need to re-set our spiritual compass. The early months of the year, before the passing of time has eroded our sense of newness, is the perfect time to make that asssessment and recommitment.
By Anne Perry
Lessons
Learned from Antiquity
How close to us the past is. All those
people were God’s children just as we are. They had the same
loves and hates, fears and dreams as we do. How sublime is the Gospel,
which excludes no one at all, from any time or place.
By Anne Perry
Finding
Gratitude for Everything
Real gratitude shows itself in treasuring
the gift, whatever it may be, in using it for good, sharing with
others.
By Anne Perry
Holding
Aloft Our Own Autumn Lights
Whatever we say in words, our lives
reflect what we really believe. The way we behave
makes very clear what our beliefs are. How can we leave our
own light own light so that others may be blessed after us? What
can we preserve, to pass on? What can we add?
By Anne Perry
The “DNA of Godhood” is within Us
Having “the DNA of Godhood”
in us tells us that we are innately programmed to become like God
— if we want to.
By Anne Perry
Lessons
from the Parables
In the time of judgment we are all
alone, accountable for everything we have done, or failed to do,
perhaps especially failed to do. Chances not taken. Now is the time
for helping, and being helped.
By Anne Perry
Basking
in Gratitude
Perhaps it is not a bad idea to live
in the shadow of a volcano to remind us that life is precious, and
can be altered in a few moments. It should never be taken lightly,
misused or, above all, wasted. We say casually "there's always
tomorrow" or "what's your hurry." No, there is not
always tomorrow. One day there won't be, so don't let's waste today.
By Anne Perry
Sheltering
the Light
Let us shelter all light from the winds
of misfortune that may blow them out, the waves that might drown
them, the rain or darkness that make them so hard to see.
By Anne Perry
Gratitude
in Adversity
How unpredictable life can be. Although
it is hard to think of bad surprises ahead, it is wonderful to know
that unimaginable good can also appear without warning. For
our own "dark nights of the soul," and for those of others,
we need to understand how to keep trust in God when everything seems
unbearable, and the loss or the pain too total to believe there
will ever be joy or meaning again.
By Anne Perry
Being
Disciples of Christ
Knowing who Christ is could make us
braver, more certain in dark times, and less likely to forget when
things are going well and we overlook the grace of remembering who
gave us all we have.
By Anne Perry
New
Beginnings for Any Time of Year
Are you grimly determined to endure
to the end, or are you savoring the ride? Here's a take on
New Year resolutions that even a Grinch could enjoy.
By Anne Perry
Determining
Who We Are
Judgment comes not as a matter of weighing
up our lives "the more good or the more bad” but it is who we are at the end that counts.
By Anne Perry
“God
Cannot be Wrong”
How many great people are put off joining
our faith by pieces of "member doctrine," when if they
heard the Plan of Salvation in all its simple, sublime beauty, they
would leap at it?
By Anne Perry
Journal
Writing — A Journey of Self-Discovery
If you have a problem or a question, why not
write it down? Sometimes simply putting into words, where no one
else will see or judge, can clarify it to the point when the answer
appears.
By Anne Perry
Thoughts
on Beauty, Perfection, and Prayer
A blank sheet of paper is without fault. It
is also without virtue. Write as well as you can in the Book of
Life. If you are afraid of making a mistake, you will never make
anything at all.
By Anne Perry
The
Treasure of Our Guilt
Sometimes we won't forgive ourselves.
God offers us the gift of wiping out the stain, and we refuse to
accept, as if we doubted His sincerity. We carry guilt as if it
were some kind of treasure. We cripples ourselves, fail to become
what we might, and our disability robs everyone.
By Anne Perry
How Far am I from Who I Really Wish to Be?
How far am I from who I really wish
to be? This time is so very precious, this opportunity to do it
better, be gentler, wiser, kinder, should never be wasted. One day
it will be over, and then I will have missed out. When the end comes,
let me at least be found trying to be the best I can.
By Anne Perry
Clinging
to the Real Treasures of Life
What greater tragedy could there be than to
gain the most precious things easily, and then fail to treasure
them, nourish and preserve them, so that finally they slip out of
our grasp? What we do not pray for, so often we take too lightly,
and cannot keep.
By Anne Perry
Notes
from above the Atlantic
Exactly what does God wish us to do in the
highest kingdom of glory in the life to come?
By Anne Perry
Thoughts
on Christmas and the New Year
Will next year offer us wonderful things? Yes,
the best of all, the chance to try again, do better. Christmas itself
offers us the chance to come back from anywhere, to which we may
have wandered, and return to the pathway upwards towards the light.
By Anne Perry
What Novels
can Teach Us
With great novels we can see into the lives
of people of any age or land, every circumstance and either sex.
Can there be anything in life more important to learn than how to
relate to, understand and love our fellow men?
By Anne Perry
Cultivating the Faith to
Make Miracles
Like life, agency is ours, an immeasurably
precious gift. We can choose what we do —
but we cannot choose what the results will be. We can read the warnings,
but if we ignore them, then we may pay a heavy price.
By Anne Perry
Tied
at the Ankle with Others
We know what kind of people were in
the City of Enoch. What kinds of people weren't?
Story and photos by Anne Perry
Tempering
Ourselves for Exaltation
Do we "temper the wind to the
shorn lamb"? If not, we are not even ready for advancement,
let alone for the power and increase that are part of the Celestial
Kingdom.
Story and photos by Anne Perry
Letter From The Highlands, Spring
There is great love in God to give
us the treasures of the soul only as we can hold onto them.
By Anne Perry
March 2005
The Gift of Time
Here and now we have limitations--and
we are to learn to work within those limitations!
By Anne Perry
Loving as Christ Loves
No one else's success can rob us of
ours. It is not a competition. If I have loved, if I have been generous,
patient, kind, brave, honest, or wise, then I have won. If you are
better or happier because of something I have done, then we are
both blessed.
By Anne Perry
Why
Does God Allow It?
In the face of the tsunami disaster--or any
loss that mortals experience--there will be people who will ask
‘If there is a God, how can He let this happen?’
by Anne Perry
Holidays
2004 -- The Hope that Lies in Beginnings
Christmas is the beginning in heaven
and earth of the possibility of honor, courage, love and joy. Rejoice
in it for all the earth.
By Anne Perry
Letter From The Highlands December 2004
If you want something done –
ask a busy person.
By Anne Perry
Letter
from the Highlands, October 2004
"The other day I answered the
telephone and recognized the person on the other end. I asked how
she was. ‘Alright’, she said. ‘But I just wanted
to hear a friendly voice’."
By Anne Perry
Letter
from the Highlands, September 2004
Crossing Boundaries
Life can include a lot of pain and
loss at times. It is not always someone else’s fault, and
society does not owe us payment because we experienced something
nasty.
By Anne Perry
Letter
From The Highlands August, 2004.
Insincere words are cheap, and often
do more harm than good. It can take time and care to think of the
right thing to say. We all need to feel that we are of value and
that what we do matters – WHATEVER our role in life. If we
believe in ourselves we can achieve anything good, if we don’t
we are crippled even before we start.
Letter
from the Highlands, Summer 2004
Are we not all bound on a journey,
which is at times hard, and seems more than we can bear? What do
you do if you see someone struggle and seem to buckle?
By
Anne Perry
LETTER FROM THE HIGHLANDS
It’s Spring – A Letter from the Highlands
Anne reminds us that the Church is
not a place for people who are perfect, but a place for people who
want to be perfect.
Letter From The Highlands March, 2004
Christ
had to go through the Friday of Golgotha to get to the Sunday of
the Resurrection. In our own personal ways, we must do the same.
Letter
From The Highlands February,
2004
Do we take the time to honestly examine
why we believe what we do? Could we explain it to someone else?
Letter
From The Highlands January, 2004
Much of what we get in our church
lessons is not new, but seeking out the Spirit and honoring the
basics offers more than we may sometimes think.
Letter
From The Highlands December, 2003
I have one life, one chance to make
of myself what I really want to be. Is that what I am doing?
Letter
From The Highlands, November 2003
Where do we draw the line and say
‘Here I stand and will defend what I believe in, at whatever
cost it may be’.
Letter
From The Highlands, October 2003
Anne has been seven weeks traveling
and is back to share lessons learned.
Letter
From The Highlands, August 2003
Is
there a spiritual equivalent to the 'power nap'? Anne Perry suggests
there are times when we need to simply say, "Lord, I need help".
Letter
from the Highlands, July 2003
If
you were given the opportunity to speak to General Conference
for ten to
fifteen minutes, just once in your life, what would
you say? In other words, what is your message to the world – if
you have that long to speak – in your whole life? What
matters most in your belief, that you would pass it on to
whoever is listening, within and beyond the Church? Anne Perry
shares her thoughts.
Letter
from the Highlands, June 2003
I have found that if I go to someone
who has hurt me, almost always it was clumsy, ignorant, unthinking,
meant to be funny, or that I had merely been the victim of an anger
caused by someone else, bursting out after that person had gone.
Nothing cruel was meant to me. I might have been over sensitive,
have misunderstood, or it could have been ?the last straw? on a
bad day.
Letter
from the Highlands, Thoughts of Eternity, May 2003
How often do we limit what we can achieve, because we have limited our dreams? I find it broadening to the soul to stand where I can gaze at the vast, shining height, the width and the boundless horizon of the ocean, the sky, and actually physically see that there is no end to creation, no limit set to what I can achieve - except that which I myself have set.
Letter
from the Highlands, April 2003
Anne Perry sails on the QE2 and finds
that even "Grumpy" is a charming person.
Letter
from the Highlands, March 2003
The
Adversary’s plan would have saved us all – but to what?
Mediocrity. We would have survived as a world of spiritual dwarfs,
never having realized our potential.
Letter
from the Highlands, February 2003
How often we shut each other out
by saying we have perfect families, well-organized lives, only trivial
problems, things that irritate, but nothing that ever really hurts.
Letter
from the Highlands, January 2003
Happy
New Year. That is a general wish rather than a belief that it will
not be one with challenges to face, some successes, and no doubt
some failures. But it can be one where such failures as there are
become woven into the fabric of learning, and are the groundwork
for success in the future.
Letter
from the Highlands December 2002
I
know how I loathe sitting and being talked at, or worse still, read
to. Lessons are not supposed to be like that, they die on their
feet when they are. Although there have been occasions, and I remember
them with horror.
Letter
from the Highlands October 2002
Don't let thoughts of the past and
the future occupy your mind so much that you miss the joy of being
alive
Letter
from the Highlands September 2002
Anne shares what she learned from
reviewing Phantom of the Opera.
Letter
from the Highlands, August
2002
If
we put family first we risk losing not only them, but even our own
salvation. The only way to assure anything good forever is to put
God first – ALWAYS!
Letter
from the Highlands, July 2002
This month Anne shares her thoughts
about faith and spiritual courage.
Letter
from the Highlands, June 2002
Anne Perry discusses the inspiring
women of the scriptures.
Letter
from the Highlands, May 2002
"Even
in pain or grief, we should struggle to keep faith by listening
for the whisper of the Comforter which has been promised us."
Anne writes about her ailing mother and her gratitude for life.
Letter
from the Highlands, March 2002
Anne shares her thoughts about spring weather and an upcoming book
tour.
Letter
from the Highlands, February 2002
Surely
the earth, its waters, its rocks, its plants, with their abundance
and their breath-taking beauty, demands both awe and our love.
Letter
from the Highlands, December 2001
The War in Heaven is endless, there is no escape—we are for
the good we believe, for courage, compassion, integrity, for generosity
of spirit towards all living, for gentleness and honour—or
we are against it—or we are too cowardly to choose, and to
fight at all. But there is no opting out.
Letter
from the Highlands, November 2001
Does our Heavenly
Father feel the same, only far more intensely, when we who are His
children, see the best in each other? And does it hurt Him more
than we can grasp when we misjudge unkindly, when we miss the good
and see only the fault, when we allow our pains and our fears of
failure or loss to make us attack when we don't need to?
Letter
from the Highlands, October 2001
We have not only a right but an obligation
to protect ourselves and others. But to descend to hatred is to
become equal with those who have committed such atrocities.
Letter
from the Highlands, September 2001
"Treasure the questioner, the challenger,
the one who demands an explanation, suggests a different answer,
a different way of doing things. The truth can stand it!"
Letter
from the Highlands, August 2001
"I
have been given the gifts of time and health, peace in which to
work, the freedom to do as I wish, in the broadest sense. I feel
acutely conscious of the responsibility to use it to the very best
of my ability, less than that will not do."
Letter
from the Highlands, July 2001
God can use only
the best for His finest work, and to know the best we must be tested.
Letter
from the Highlands, June 2001
After
much travel I am safely back home again, and able to go to Church.
The whole meeting at the beginning of May was most uplifting. It
reminded me very forcibly of what one misses when absence makes
it impossible to attend.
Letter
from the Highlands, May 2001
It
has been an odd month so far, full of ups and downs, and I suppose
if this is to the least bit honest, it must include the down as
well, or the ups would be of no value.
Letter
from the Highlands, Late March 2001
As England is ravaged by foot and mouth disease, Anne Perry "wonders
if the Book of Mormon lands were as heartbreakingly beautiful, and
as filled with a people who would not turn to God in their affliction,
not only with their mouths, but with their hearts also."
Letter
from the Highlands, March 2001
From
the British Isles to Germany to Alaska, Anne Perry recounts her
travels this month. She muses on her journey of life, "You
can freewheel downwards - but not uphill - and shouldn't I be climbing,
at least most of the way?"
Letter
from the Highlands, February 2001
I
need to have more trust in God, both that he loves me, as he does
us all, but also that he knows me and knows a better path for me
than I know myself.
Letter
from the Highlands, January 2001
It
is tragic to spend one's life in the past or the future, not in
the NOW - not to look around and think - THIS MOMENT is wonderful!
Letter
from the Highlands, December 2000
I
wish I could believe that at Christmas, and again at Easter, we
would cease our usual pursuits and remember again what price has
been paid for us - and who we are! And who we may become.
Letter
from the Highlands, November 2000
The
only way I feel I can give of my best to each occasion is to concentrate
all my energy and attention on wherever I am at that moment.
Letter
from the Highlands, October 2000
To
keep the commandments is more than to simply obey them, it is to
revere, defend and protect them as well. Perhaps that means speaking
up, going to battle occasionally so that others also have the chance
to keep the commandments, even to know of them?
Letter
from the Highlands, September 2000
God
does not play parlour games. If He uses physical laws that seem
to be at odds with the ones we know - or think we do - then there
has to be a profound moral reason for it.
Letter
from the Highlands, July 2000
This
is the second letter recounting writer Anne Perry's personal spiritual
journey, reporting July 2000.
Letter
from the Highlands, June 2000
Gifted
writer, Anne Perry, known by fans worldwide for her intriguing Victorian
mystery novels, begins a monthly letter to Meridian readers,
reflecting on her spiritual journey. Written from her home in the
Scottish highlands with glimpses into life in her small branch,
she voices the ah-has and joys of living in the gospel.
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