The Rain Upon the Mountains

I was thinking about the famous speech of Franklin Roosevelt, where he speaks of a future where we will all be free from many of the unpredictable pitfalls of life. I realized that this marked a critical transition in the history of the United States, when freedom became replaced by "freedom from." It represented a shift of focus from the citizenry and the sovereignty of the individual, to the preeminence of the state and its role as caretaker. The principles of natural rights - which weighed heavily with Enlightenment thinkers and America's founders - were eclipsed by the concept of entitlements. While it's true that the first two of Roosevelt's "four freedoms" are anchored in the Enlightenment and the US Constitution, the intent was to present the 'new freedoms' - or New Deal, if you will - as a natural extension of the constitutional ideals. Interestingly, property rights receive no mention among the essential freedoms. Instead, the emphasi

We just finished watching the General Conference for our Church, and I wanted to write down some of my thoughts. Every year, in April and October we have a televised conference where some of the men and women who serve in leadership positions in the church give sermons, which we call "talks". Since we don't have a television provider, we watch it over the internet, streamed from lds.org. Perhaps the talk that had the greatest impression on me was the one given Sunday morning by Dieter F. Uchtdorf.  President Uchtdorf is one of two counsellors to President Thomas S. Monson, who is the president of the Church, and a prophet of God. These three men form what we call the First Presidency, and perform the same function that was performed in New Testament times by Peter, James, and John. President Uchtdorf is himself, like James and John, an Apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ.  With that explanation out of the way, President Uchtdorf spoke of those times when it seems that &q