Two wonderful speakers at church today. The second was a man who started off by saying that my husband and I lived in the ward he grew up in in New Hampshire when he was a teenager, and so, he joked, “They have signed a nondisclosure agreement.” Brought down the house.

The first was my Richard.

With a very simple message, quoting from scripture about how dissension and anger are not of G_d: that we can disagree, but it must be with civility. That if we give in to rancor we are failing ourselves and those we’re talking to and G_d himself, who loves us without reservation and to whom we so much owe love by loving His children.

Nobody ever changed their minds by being argued with, he said. Only love changes people for the better.

It was the shortest talk I’ve ever heard him give.

It was all that needed to be said.