Tag Archives: Chastity

Thoughts, Words, Deeds

I have an old recording of a Harold B. Lee address entitled “Do the Right Things for the Right Reasons”.  As his title suggests, he labors the point that more important than our actions, our motives are key to who we are and the purposes of this life. He makes the simple statement that stood out to me. He said, “Virtue isn’t chastity, it includes it.”

I found this doodle I had done a couple of years ago to illustrate the idea. I use the term ‘modesty’ with ‘say’ both in the context of what words we use as well as how we send messages through choices like the clothing we wear, the materials we surround ourselves with and so on.

Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord? or who shall standin his holy place?

He that hath clean hands, and a pure heart; who hath not lifted up his soul unto vanity, nor sworn deceitfully.

Psalms 24:3-4

“Sex is a River of Fire”, Will and Ariel Durant

While President of Brigham Young University, Jeffrey R. Holland shared with quote from the great historians, Will and Ariel Durant:

No one man, however brilliant or well-informed, can come in one lifetime to such fullness of understanding as to safely judge and dismiss the customs or institutions of his society, for these are the wisdom of generations after centuries of experiment in the laboratory of history. A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by custom, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group.

Will and Ariel Durant, The Lessons of History (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968), pp. 35–36

Sketchnote: “Beware Concerning Yourselves”

It’s not a sketchnote in the truest sense of the method, but still a creative release while capturing meaning from Elder Anthony D. Perkin’s priesthood session address. I loved the imagery and what started as a sketch kind of took on a life of it’s own.

“Brethren, each of you has entered, or will soon enter, into the oath and covenant of the Melchizedek Priesthood. In that covenant is embedded a glorious journey that begins with receiving both the lesser and higher priesthoods, progresses through magnifying our callings, and climbs ever upward to God’s grandest vistas, until we receive ‘all that [the] Father hath.’

The wise designer of that celestial road has erected caution signs for our journey. The oath and covenant of the priesthood contains this soul-searching warning: ‘I now give unto you a commandment to beware concerning yourselves.'”

Read, listen or watch the address here.

The Wisdom of Chastity

Speaking on chastity and morality, President Gordon B. Hinckley said,

You should recognize, you must recognize, that both experience and divine wisdom dictate virtue and moral cleanliness as the way that leads to strength of character, peace in the heart, and happiness in life. Will and Ariel Durant, who wrote eleven large volumes of history covering thousands of years, declared: “A youth boiling with hormones will wonder why he should not give full freedom to his sexual desires; and if he is unchecked by customs, morals, or laws, he may ruin his life before he matures sufficiently to understand that sex is a river of fire that must be banked and cooled by a hundred restraints if it is not to consume in chaos both the individual and the group” (The Lessons of History, New York: Simon and Schuster, 1968, pp. 35–36).

“Reverence and Morality”
April 1987 General Conference