Today's Maxwell Quote

From We Will Prove Them Herewith (1982), 30:

To see things as they really are before that solemn but joyous day when our perspective will be pure is such a blessing. Meanwhile, can we not understand why events that are understandably unwelcome in some ways are, nevertheless, welcome in other ways? A man whose wife lies near death has a precious chance, perhaps for the first time, to put his business—which may have assumed too much size—in proper perspective. It is not a matter of abandoning or devaluing entirely his worthy business but, rather, of putting things in that proportion which comes with being settled—when the objects on the landscape of life assume their true proportion.

If, for instance, next Christmas were to be the last for Grandmother, would we not, without suffocating sentimentality, let some of the Martha-like tasks go undone in order that, Mary-like, Grandmother could be subtly put at the center of things for the last time here?

The Martha-like things chosen are not always the bad part—merely lesser choices. The Savior did not say that the cares of the world were not cares. But this world will pass away, and its cares with it. The things really worth caring about will still be around to be cared about forever. The other things are like last week's firewood, useful to warm a needed meal, which, in turn, helped to sustain the body. But to what end? Only His gospel gives us ultimate reasons. Without such perspective, we would be like astronomers who have never seen the stars.