Spirit briefings become our homing devices

I've been reading "Hearing the Voice of the Lord," the new book by Elder Gerald N. Lund. Now that he's "Elder" Lund, not just "Gerry" Lund, he seems determined to dig a little deeper in the mine of Mormonism.

"Life is far too complicated for us to make our way through it on our own," he writes at the outset, "...So how do we make it through this spiritually, and often physically, dangerous journey we call mortality? God does not give us a daily rule book. He gives us a Companion who is with us daily." (his italics)

More than temple worship, the Word of Wisdom or even the role of Jesus, the little nugget above, I think, is what distinguishes LDS faith. When President Martin Van Buren asked Joseph Smith what made his church unique, he said it was its view of The Holy Ghost. Members of the church, at baptism, are given an "access card" of sorts — a right to get briefings from deity on a regular basis.

For Elder Lund, those "briefings" are the marrow of Mormonism.

They are also the reason his book is hopping off the shelves.

Several years ago, when my son was 10, we visited the Mission at San Juan Capistrano in California. He'd begun dabbling in photography, so he took some photos of the swallows there (700 rolls of film, if I remember right). It amused me then, and amuses me still, that when people learn about the swallows leaving Mexico and flying "home" to the Capistrano church each year, they shake their heads and see it as a miracle of nature. But let a dusty pilgrim stumble into that same church and say he was guided there by some mysterious "pull," and people would think he's a kook.

"Behold the fowls of the air," says the Sermon on the Mount, "...Are ye not much better than they?"

Most people apparently think not. They marvel at the way sonar guides the whales through the seas and how an unseen power helps young monarch butterflies return to the same places their ancestors abandoned. But the notion of people being aided in life by an inner compass is written off as superstitious.

Why wouldn't human beings be equipped with a "homing device"? Aren't they, to quote the Bible again, "worth more than many sparrows"?

People punch a button on their cell phones and get automatic updates about the direction of the world. Is it such a leap to believe they can also get internal updates about the direction of their lives?

Belief in those "inner-net" briefings is what sets Mormonism apart.