Judgment Continued

 I knew I could count on you people. My insanely wise friend Collette even resurrected her blog in order to respond to my questions, so you should probably go read what she said.

 The talk from Elder Oaks that Bryce referred me to was very enlightening as well, so if you're interested in this subject, it's definitely worth a read.

And lastly, if you're interested but shorter on time, here are some snippets from the talk that I found most helpful.

"I have been puzzled that some scriptures command us not to judge and others instruct us that we should judge and even tell us how to do it. But as I have studied these passages I have become convinced that these seemingly contradictory directions are consistent when we view them with the perspective of eternity. The key is to understand that there are two kinds of judging: final judgments, which we are forbidden to make, and intermediate judgments, which we are directed to make, but upon righteous principles.

Since mortals cannot suppose that they will be acting as final judges at that future, sacred time, why did the Savior command that we not judge final judgments? I believe this commandment was given because we presume to make final judgments whenever we proclaim that any particular person is going to hell (or to heaven) for a particular act or as of a particular time. When we do this—and there is great temptation to do so—we hurt ourselves and the person we pretend to judge.

The Prophet Joseph Smith said: “While one portion of the human race is judging and condemning the other without mercy, the Great Parent of the universe looks upon the whole of the human family with a fatherly care and paternal regard; … He holds the reins of judgment in His hands; He is a wise Lawgiver, and will judge all men, … ‘not according to what they have not, but according to what they have,’ those who have lived without law, will be judged without law, and those who have a law, will be judged by that law”.

Even the Savior, during His mortal ministry, refrained from making final judgments. We see this in the account of the woman taken in adultery. After the crowd who intended to stone her had departed, Jesus asked her about her accusers. “Hath no man condemned thee?” (John 8:10). When she answered no, Jesus declared, “Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more” (John 8:11). In this context the word condemn apparently refers to the final judgment (see John 3:17).

The Lord obviously did not justify the woman’s sin. He simply told her that He did not condemn her—that is, He would not pass final judgment on her at that time.

We must, of course, make judgments every day in the exercise of our moral agency, but we must be careful that our judgments of people are intermediate and not final. Thus, our Savior’s teachings contain many commandments we cannot keep without making intermediate judgments of people: “Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast ye your pearls before swine” (Matt. 7:6); “Beware of false prophets. … Ye shall know them by their fruits” (Matt. 7:15–16); and “Go ye out from among the wicked” (D&C 38:42).

First, a righteous judgment must, by definition, be intermediate. It will refrain from declaring that a person has been assured of exaltation or from dismissing a person as being irrevocably bound for hellfire. It will refrain from declaring that a person has forfeited all opportunity for exaltation or even all opportunity for a useful role in the work of the Lord. The gospel is a gospel of hope, and none of us is authorized to deny the power of the Atonement to bring about a cleansing of individual sins, forgiveness, and a reformation of life on appropriate conditions.

Second, a righteous judgment will be guided by the Spirit of the Lord, not by anger, revenge, jealousy, or self-interest.

Third, to be righteous, an intermediate judgment must be within our stewardship. We should not presume to exercise and act upon judgments that are outside our personal responsibilities. Some time ago I attended an adult Sunday School class in a small town in Utah. The subject was the sacrament, and the class was being taught by the bishop. During class discussion a member asked, “What if you see an unworthy person partaking of the sacrament? What do you do?” The bishop answered, “You do nothing. I may need to do something.” That wise answer illustrates my point about stewardship in judging.

Fourth, we should, if possible, refrain from judging until we have adequate knowledge of the facts. In an essay titled “Sitting in the Seat of Judgment,” the great essayist William George Jordan reminded us that character cannot be judged as dress goods—by viewing a sample yard to represent a whole bolt of cloth (see The Crown of Individuality [1909], 101–5).

In another essay he wrote: “There is but one quality necessary for the perfect understanding of character, one quality that, if man have it, he may dare to judge—that is, omniscience. Most people study character as a proofreader pores over a great poem: his ears are dulled to the majesty and music of the lines, his eyes are darkened to the magic imagination of the genius of the author; that proofreader is busy watching for an inverted comma, a misspacing, or a wrong font letter. He has an eye trained for the imperfections, the weaknesses. …

“We do not need to judge nearly so much as we think we do. This is the age of snap judgments. … [We need] the courage to say, ‘I don’t know. I am waiting further evidence. I must hear both sides of the question.’ It is this suspended judgment that is the supreme form of charity”.

A fifth principle of a righteous intermediate judgment is that whenever possible we will refrain from judging people and only judge situations. This is essential whenever we attempt to act upon different standards than others with whom we must associate—at home, at work, or in the community. We can set and act upon high standards for ourselves or our homes without condemning those who do otherwise.

In a BYU devotional address, Professor Catherine Corman Parry gave a memorable scriptural illustration of the consequences of judging by the wrong standards. The scripture is familiar. 

Martha received Jesus into her house and worked to provide for Him while her sister Mary sat at Jesus’ feet and heard His words.

“But Martha was cumbered about much serving, and came to him, and said, Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me.

“And Jesus answered and said unto her, Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things:

“But one thing is needful: and Mary hath chosen that good part, which shall not be taken away from her” (Luke 10:40–42).

Professor Parry said: “The Lord acknowledges Martha’s care: ‘Martha, Martha, thou art careful and troubled about many things’ (Luke 10:41). Then he delivers the gentle but clear rebuke. But the rebuke would not have come had Martha not prompted it. The Lord did not go into the kitchen and tell Martha to stop cooking and come listen. Apparently he was content to let her serve him however she cared to, until she judged another person’s service: ‘Lord, dost thou not care that my sister hath left me to serve alone? bid her therefore that she help me’ (Luke 10:40). Martha’s self-importance, expressed through her judgment of her sister, occasioned the Lord’s rebuke, not her busyness with the meal”.

“… While there are many things we must make judgments about, the sins of another or the state of our own souls in comparison to others seems not to be among them. … Our own sins, no matter how few or seemingly insignificant, disqualify us as judges of other people’s sins” 

Judgment

Poll:
What does it mean to judge, or refrain from judging, others? When you make a deliberate effort "not to judge", what does that look like?

This is something that I realized I've always been kind of confused about, and I think that confusion needs to be resolved before I can make any progress in overcoming this fault.

For instance, if I'm trying not to judge others, does that mean I don't have any opinion on the actions of others?

Does it mean that while I may have an initial reaction to the actions of others, I must always be sure to remind myself that I don't know the whole story, and therefore have no right to make any real judgments?

Am I allowed to judge when the actions of others affect me?

If someone breaks into my house, kills my dog and eats all my otter pops, I'm pretty sure I'm not only going to have an opinion about these events, but I'm going to have an opinion about the person who did it. Should I wait to hear about this person's life history and the circumstances surrounding the event before I make that judgment? Or is it understood that I'm inevitably going to make a biased judgment at first, which will have to be corrected later?

What if a member of my ward gets up during testimony meeting one Sunday and bears what I believe to be a very irreverent, fairly offensive testimony (this may or may not have happened last Fast Sunday). Is it wrong for me to feel this way? I thought feelings were never wrong? How would a non-judgmental person handle this situation?

Insights are appreciated.


Also, good news:

See this impossibly adorable kid in the Hawaiian floral combo?



Well, he's all grown up now, and I get to marry him in TWELVE days.




I'm a little bit stoked about it.

Love Is Not Blind-- It Is Bound

Special thanks goes to my friend Steph for recommending this talk to me. As soon as I heard the title I knew I would love it, and I did. I'm going to curb the desire to hash out the majority of my thoughts on the subject, as they are still in progress. But I will say that my own progression in relation to the gospel has followed a similar trajectory to the one outlined in this talk, so I appreciated seeing it addressed by elder Hafen, especially with such astute insight.

"The fundamental teachings of the restored gospel are potent, clear and unambiguous; but it is possible, on occasion, to encounter some ambiguity even in studying the scriptures... Even though God has given us correct principles by which we are to govern ourselves, it is not always easy to apply them to particular situations in our lives. "

No it is not easy, but it is, perhaps, the substance of what this earth life is all about. I would like to assert that it is through this uncertainty, and our continual efforts to apply the gospel to sometimes ambiguous situations, that we accomplish the majority of our growth. To always be striving, reaching, seeking to bridge the gap between what is and what should be - I think this is maybe a good thing to be. Not forever of course, but maybe just for now, while we transition our tastes from less milk to more meat.

Thoughts?

More than words is all you have to do to make it real

A depthy post on the nature of love is far beyond the scope of this blog (and let's face it, far beyond my comprehension). But I will say this: I think it's very easy for us to offer the words "I love you" as just that - an offering; a gift. We often say it in the same way we would give a compliment; a sort of kind gesture from me to you. The gift I give is the way I feel about you. This is not to say that the backing sentiment is phony, but simply that we don't always take pains for our meanings.

The sages of our time often inform us that love has more to do with our actions than our emotions, and while that sounds all noble and good, the thing is that it seems to actually, quite literally be true.

Exhibit A: Some time ago I began to feel uneasy whenever I got to that part in my prayers when I told the Lord that I "loved Him." My subconscious understanding of love being a gift rendered my declaration immediately ridiculous. Who am I to think that I have anything to give that He doesn't already have? The implication of gift-giving is that one must have and one must lack, and this is never the case in our relationship with the Omnipotent God. Even more disturbing, if love is simply a way of feeling about someone, who am I to "feel" towards the Lord as a man feels towards his pet dog, or the mountains, or Beethoven symphonies? The notion implies a sort of evaluation I have over some sort of raw material. To assume that I have any sort of capacity for evaluating the Lord is probably the most outrageous and offensive thing ever.

But alas, the saving grace lies in the fact that I was wrong about love. It is not a gift you give by saying it. It is an explanation for something you're already doing. Ideally, when I tell you I love you, it is a pleasant but unnecessary caption for the illustration of everything I am doing to support, nurture, and care for you. And you see, when we look at it this way, it makes perfect sense to tell the Lord we love Him. We are not so much expressing a sentiment to Him as we are committing ourselves to continue serving him; to act in charity towards Him and all men, because charity is the pure love of Christ.

There, doesn't that just FEEL better?

Of Vice and Virtue

Ok, so perhaps you all DON'T have thoughts on that last issue. That's cool, that's cool, but what about this one?

The other day I was thinking about all the people I respect and admire most, and I noticed that they all seem to have pretty much the same traits in common. These people are kind, selfless, temperate, wise. They are humble and hard-working. These are people whom I consider to be as perfect as mortality allows; people who seem, based on my perception anyway, to be as close to Christ as one gets in this world. I realized that all these people were more or less alike each other, at least more alike than the rest of us baddens. Which made me wonder if this is sort of what Tolstoy was getting at:

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way (Anna Karenina).

There are a lot of ways to be bad (unhappy), but goodness (happiness) comes in pretty much the same forms - kindness, temperance, wisdom, humility, industriousness. It seems that the closer we get to Christ, the more alike we become - which makes perfect sense because we are, after all, converging into the same thing; that is, Christ Himself.

I was about ready to pat myself on the back for finally solving the mystery of what the heck Leo was talking about, when it occurred to me that perhaps there aren't so many ways to be bad after all. Could one just as easily say that badness is all the same, too? Cruelty, gluttony, foolishness, pride, sloth - are not all our sins some variation of these big'ns?

I know someone's gotta have an opinion on this! Also, 20 points to moi for using 'badden' and 'big'n' in the same post! I'm on an alliteral roll!

Also, I just remembered that my bro Bryce once offered a different interpretation of the Tolstoy quote which I think is also quite insightful. Go here to see it.

The best part about this post is that I got to use the words 'ephemeral' and 'evanescent'

Pride has been on my mind a lot lately. And I'm not even talking about Westview Pride. By some stroke of divine wisdom/punishment, I feel that I've lately become more inclined to notice my own pride in all its many manifestations, which has led me to conclude that I am actually one of the most prideful people as has ever walked the earth. I know, it's so paradoxical right, cause look at me right now! I'm being all humble by acknowledging my faults and stuff, right? Well, maybe I was for a fleeting moment there, but even now I am back to being prideful about what a humble gal I am, and that ephemeral humility is three blocks down the street again. It seems that humility, like the present, is hopelessly evanescent. And yet, it must not be a completely hopeless virtue to strive for, or else I wouldn't feel shame for not having it, would I? There must still be people out there who have learned the secret of how to pin it down for at least longer than a moment. In fact, I'm pretty certain there are, because sometimes you can just tell those kinds of people.

My inability to pin down humility for longer than a millisecond is discouraging, but I have hope yet than I can improve. My wise missionary friend Sorella Jacobson pointed out that perhaps the best plan of attack for eliminating pride is not to tirelessly chase humility, but rather to focus on replacing pride with something that is equally accessible but better, like selfless service. She says our minds are a stage, and that only one act can be played on it at a time, so perhaps it is better to replace one bad act with a good one, and then humility might come as a fringe benefit. I'm still uncertain about this, but I certainly think it's worth a shot.

I know you all have thoughts on this. Let's hear 'em!

What They Didn't Teach You in Sunday School

Please pardon the brief interruption in my LTLYM series, but I can't afford to have anyone left in the dark about this particular truth any longer. What truth am I so conspiratorially hinting at? The truth about humility.

Ok, qualifier, maybe it was just me. All I know is that I didn't really understand humility very well until...erm, recently. To me, the process of being humbled appeared to be a rather peaceful thing. You're prideful, something causes you to recognize your pridefulness, you quietly chide yourself and strive to knock it off. Or maybe someone calls you out on your pridefulness, in which case there's some embarrassment thrown in. Either way, it's a calm procedure.

Not so! The truth is that being humbled hurts. It hurts like heck. It is like the jagged, metal edge of your will scraping up against the equally jagged will of the Lord, with sparks flying and horrid nails-on-the-chalkboard sounds emitting and absolutely no progress being made. Or here's another metaphor: How about a dogfight between your will and the Lord's, except the Lord is an Irish Wolfhound and you're a Pomeranian. Obviously you're going to lose eventually, but you're a stubborn little pom and won't give up without a fight. It's very violent. Blood is drawn. Limbs are yanked and crushed. But still you fight on, because this is your will we're talking about! Deep down you know it is the most important thing you possess, and more importantly, the only thing you really have control over. Certainly you're not going to give up something like that so easily.



But the hard truth is that if we want to become "new creatures in Christ", as Clive puts it, then the will must be killed. That feisty little animal inside of us that represents everything we desire and everything we hope for - it has to go. These are the conditions that have always been set out for us. We are promised that if we give Him everything; that is, absolutely everything, He will throw out this old decrepit creature of ours and replace it with a new one, one that is of a different and a far better quality than anything we can now comprehend.

Clive obviously knew all this, and said it much more eloquently than I can:

Give up your self, and you will find your real self. Lose your life and you will save it. Submit to death, death of your ambitions and favourite wishes every day and death of your whole body in the end: submit with every fibre of your being and you will find eternal life. Keep back nothing. Nothing that you have not given away will ever be really yours. Nothing in you that has not died will ever be raised from the dead. Look for yourself and you will find in the long run only hatred, loneliness, despair, rage, ruin, and decay. But look for Christ and you will find Him, and with him everything else thrown in.


So, that was pretty much all I wanted to say. I have felt my own animal slowly dying lately, and it hasn't been pretty. But I have hope that I can kill it yet. And I recognize that this animal of mine tends to come back in all sorts of yappy reincarnations, which is why I must always be fighting it. So, yeah. Feeling pretty confident that I'm going to be living a full 70+ years cause I'm afraid it's going to take about that long to kill this creature once and for all.





To end:

So it is that real, personal sacrifice never was placing an animal on the altar. Instead, it is a willingness to put the animal in us upon the altar and letting it be consumed! Such is the “sacrifice unto the Lord … of a broken heart and a contrite spirit,” (D&C 59:8), a prerequisite to taking up the cross, while giving “away all [our] sins” in order to “know God” (Alma 22:18) for the denial of self precedes the full acceptance of Him.

Elder Maxwell, everybody.

Faith, Reason, Knowledge, and Truth, and Brazilian Buffet

Ok, I know I've been building you up to this epic Nat-like post about Smith's, but frankly there is no time for that these days. Don't worry, it's coming! (read: it's probably never coming) In the meantime, read this amazing speech by a retired BYU psych professor. If you think you know what faith is, think again.




And cause I know some of you are visual learners, unrelated picture of me at Tucano's.



(see that face I'm making? That's how I feel about this speech. Boom, related)

Matters of Business

Before I begin my Nat-training regimen, I just have a few assorted thoughts to put on paper, if you will, thoughts that I didn't think were very becoming of a blog like Nat's. Actually what I'm really doing is letting myself off the hook cause all I plan to do is get these thoughts/statements out there without bothering to elaborate, clarify, or justify myself. Sweet.

1. You know how we seem to have this reality that exists outside of all our thoughts, the objective "things as they really are"? Why is that reality so hard to penetrate? I feel like my reality, anyway, is composed of mortar and brick. Whenever I read a really inspiring article, for instance, that goes radically against my general outlook and motivates me to start thinking a different way. Or whenever I get to experience a particularly good class lecture, or Relief Society lesson, or what have you. But for the sake of brevity let's go back to the inspiring article scenario. So I'm sitting there at the computer, absorbed in this exciting bubble of inspiration.
Eventually I have to get up from the computer and go about the rest of my day, and unfortunately I always find that that bubble of inspiration pops somewhere between the ASB and the MARB, or maybe somewhere between campus and my apartment. The point is that it inevitably leaves me. That inspiring article I read not 20 minutes ago becomes only a hazy memory of something that was a nice idea, but not realistic. THIS is how things really are. Kind of like how when you're depressed, everything you think becomes truth. All those positive thoughts you once had were comforting while they lasted, but they weren't reality. When it comes down to it, THIS is what's real. THIS is what's always been real, you just got distracted for a while. I just think it's very sad, because I feel like it makes it so difficult to implement positive changes in my life. Does this ring true for anyone else/make sense to anyone else? Oh well, this is the blog post of not justifying myself, so I'll move on.

2. Is there really anyone out there who still believes in individualism? Show me that person, and I will interrogate them, and eventually I will get it out of them that in their heart of hearts, they are actually collectivists. How else do you account for the fact of our relationships being the most painful slash exultant things in our lives? Ok, so maybe I'm being excessively simplistic here, and probably don't fully understand what individualism and collectivism actually mean - but really, folks. Like it or not, relationships are what it's all about.

3. I was reading in Luke the other day about the woman who came to Jesus and bathed his feet with her tears. It's striking that she had such a complete understanding of how glorious He was and how unworthy she was in comparison, but then it occurred to me that this woman's faith was rooted in something that hadn't even happened yet. And then it made me wonder, is it harder to have faith in an Atonement that has yet to happen, or in one that supposedly happened thousands of years ago? They are both things that are not seen, so maybe one isn't harder than the other, but I do wonder. C. thinks it must've been somehow more difficult to have faith back then, which is why the Mosaic Law was implemented, but I just don't know.

4. Art. It's so cool. Basically all I was going to say about The Stranger was that it reawakened me to what good fiction is all about, at least in my opinion. It's an art form. For a long time I've sort of shunned fiction from my shelves, feeling like it was too trivial/boring because it wasn't real. But after reading this simple, 120 pg. book I realized that there's so much more to fiction than that, at least good fiction. The process of crafting a story- of developing characters, conveying very specific feelings, expressing certain meanings so poignantly - this is not easy to do, and when done well, the effect on the reader is anything but trivial.* I'm finally beginning to understand that a good novel can be just as beautiful as any Oscar-winning movie, or a truly kick-a piece of music à la Mahler. They're all art. I am humbled by this epiphany (It's actually not surprising that this realization came to me so late, seeing that artistry in general does not come easily to me. My intro to film class last semester worked me like a dog, plus I can't draw to save my life).

5. Finally, a survey: Why do you eat? How much of it is because a) You like the taste of the food you eat, b) you like the process of being satiated/don't like being hungry, c) you anticipate long-term benefits like the effect is has on your body/mood/health, or d) you like the process of chewing and swallowing something? I'm assuming, of course, that most of you have motivations outside of basic survival. My personal breakdown of the four motivations is 40%, 20%, 0%, and 40%, respectively (which, coincidentally, is why I'll never be skinny). Oh, eating.

Start getting pumped for my next post featuring a delightful romp at Smith's!

*you can do all these things in non-fiction too, of course, but it's not nearly as creative and thus not nearly as impressive.

Perplexed, Portland

There's been a question burning in my soul for quite some time now, one that I've alluded to before but that I would like to now formally pose to you all:

Where do trials come from, and are we supposed to fight them?

Let me illustrate my confusion with a quote from George Q. Cannon:

"Do not allow darkness and gloom to enter into your hearts. I want to give you a rule by which you may know that the spirit which you have is the right spirit. The Spirit of God produces cheerfulness, joy, light and good feelings. Whenever you feel gloomy and despondent and are downcast, unless it be for your sins, you may know it is not the Spirit of God which you have. Fight against it and drive it out of your heart. The Spirit of God is a spirit of hope; it is not a spirit of gloom."

It seems straightforward enough, but here's what I don't get: Aren't darkness and gloom just like any other trial we mortals are subjected to? And aren't trials, after all, very good for the development of our characters, and indeed necessary for our eternal progression? My understanding is that (correct me if I'm missing something), while gloom and despondency themselves may not come of God, they are still vital experiences that He allows us to suffer for His own wise purposes. I've certainly felt in my life that the pains which have so alienated me from everything light and truth have also, paradoxically, drawn me closer to Him, and for this reason I would never trade those experiences.

Why, then, would I ever want to fight these feelings that ultimately improve me? Who would I be without these refining experiences?

And if these refining experiences are the will of the Lord, as I believe they are, then who am I to think that my own feeble efforts could do anything to remove them anyhow?

I just don't know. While you're pondering that, here's my pix from Portland last month:

"What shall we do, that this cloud of darkness may be removed from overshadowing us?"

The subject of healing in the scriptures has always sort of baffled me. We always hear about how Christ went around healing the sick, healing pretty much anyone who asked, just handing out healings like candy. I understand that the point of it was to reward the faith of these people, but I've still often wondered why He made it that easy. We talk so much of the benefit of trials, of their role in refining us and testing us, of building our faith and patience and all those good things that will mold us into the type of beings who will one day be exalted. Why, then, did Christ so easily remove these afflictions from people back in the day? Had they already proven themselves? Was this final act of faith - that is, asking to be healed - the last obstacle in the way of redemption? I can believe that for some, but for ALL those people? I just can't swallow that. It seems, at least, very different today.

These days it seems most people are allowed plenty of time for refinement and testing. And you know what, that's great. The present paradigm makes a lot more sense to me. Of course we should be allowed to muddle through our trials for a while, for months, even years, if that's what it takes for us to learn what we're supposed to be learning. And yet, we still read in the scriptures that if we simply cry unto the Lord and demonstrate faith, He will heal us. He will remove our afflictions. If it is indeed that simple, then I am sore confused. Does instant- gratification-healing seem counterproductive to anyone else? Why would the Lord, who loves us, cave in that easily and thus stymie our growth? Isn't that sort of akin to a parent who enforces some sort of punishment in order to teach a lesson, only to go soft at the first pleading and withdraw it? Isn't this how spoiled brats are developed? Maybe there are times when the test of faith is more important than the test of patience or long-suffering. If this is the case then it makes sense for a believing person to be healed. But what about when someone has the faith thing down and needs instead a lesson on enduring to the end? How is it that this person is given the same promise of healing?

Don't worry, I've taken the liberty of anticipating your counterarguments, so here are my concessions:

1. Timing - that is, healing might be promised, but maybe not right away

2. Will of the Lord - we know that this pretty much trumps everything. So, if a person is indeed healed as soon as he exercises faith and asks for it, we know that for whatever reason, the Lord saw fit to heal that person. Who knows, maybe that person had already proven himself in faith as well as in patience and long-suffering. Only the Lord knows his heart, after all. What looks like instant gratification to us may not actually be.

3. I thought I had anticipated more, but honestly this is all so confusing and mushy in my brain that it probably got lost somewhere by the wayside. Probably by my amygdala, everything gets caught there.

Refer back to my title quote. I find it interesting that people in the scriptures tend to ask questions like that - essentially, "Lord, what can I do to fix this?" They want a specific action that they can perform, an equation to run so that they might receive a desired outcome. And in our defense, the scriptures do seem to be rife with equations: seek-->find, ask-->receive, knock-->it shall be opened. But is it really that simple? When the Lamanites asked this question, they were told that if they repented, cried unto the Lord, and had faith, the cloud of darkness would be removed. And I can't help but wonder if maybe the point of that answer was not so much to show them how to remove the cloud, but rather, a way to get them to start doing those things for their own general benefit. Things they wouldn't have done if they hadn't thought there was a reward on the other side. It's really quite clever of the Lord, when you think about it.

Maybe the Lamanites were confronting a literal cloud of darkness, and maybe some of us have to confront a cloud of darkness not quite so literal. The procedure is the same. Maybe it'll be removed just as soon as we ask, or maybe it never will. Maybe it doesn't even matter what happens, so long as we're doing what we're supposed to be doing on our end.

But what do I know.

"Patience is a willingness, in a sense, to watch the unfolding purposes of God with a sense of wonder and awe, rather than pacing up and down within the cell of our circumstance. Put another way, too much anxious opening of the oven door and the cake falls instead of rising. So it is with us. If we are always selfishly taking our temperature to see if we are happy, we will not be."

Love love love this talk!

Trying to be Profound

One morning, maybe two months ago, I woke up with the distinct sense that my actions that day would be inconsequential. I mean, temporally speaking. I knew that it really didn't matter how I did at school that day, what I got done, what I didn't get done, what sort of interactions I had with the people around me, how far I ran or what I ate. None of these things amounted to anything important. They were just motions to go through, all laid out for me to help me achieve the one really meaningful purpose, and that is to return with honor. And that's what every day is, an endless stream of opportunities to prove myself, to learn and grow and become the kind of being who will one day be exalted. I honestly think the Lord couldn't care less about what grade I get in Engl 202 this semester, so long as taking the class has somehow made me more likely to get back to Him. So long as you make it home safe, does it really matter by which route you got there? I don't know what provoked my mind to think such crazy things at 6:30 in the morning, but it did, and I was so grateful. It was such a novel and refreshing truth. Of course, it was gone within five minutes and I was back to worrying about what I needed to to do that day, what does so-and-so think of me, will I get to take a nap this afternoon. That's the veil, I suppose - some days diaphanous, some days a little more opaque.

Ok, now for some light-hearted fun, go here.

Another Great Talk

"In considering such beauty of the “at-one-ment” in that first Easter season, we are reminded that this relationship between Christ and His Father is one of the sweetest and most moving themes running through the Savior’s ministry. Jesus’ entire being, His complete purpose and delight, were centered in pleasing His Father and obeying His will. Of Him He seemed always to be thinking; to Him He seemed always to be praying. Unlike us, He needed no crisis, no discouraging shift in events to direct His hopes heavenward. He was already instinctively, longingly looking that way."

--Jeffrey R. Holland, The Hands of the Fathers

more from The Four Loves. How does Clive be so awesome?

"In words which can still bring tears to my eyes, St. Augustine describes the desolation in which the death of his friend Nebridius plunged him (Confession IV, 10). Then he draws a moral. This is what comes, he says, of giving one's heart to anything but God. All human beings pass away. Do not let your happiness depend on something you may lose. If love is to be a blessing, not a misery, it must be for the only Beloved who will never pass away.

Or course, this is excellent sense. Don't put your goods in a leaky vessel. Don't spend too much on a house you may be turned out of. And there is no man alive who responds more naturally than I do to such canny maxims. I am a safety-first creature. Of all arguments against love none makes so strong an appeal to my nature as "Careful! This might lead you to suffering."

To my nature, my temperament, yes. Not to my conscience. When I respond to that appeal I seem to myself to be a thousand miles away from Christ. If I am sure of anything I am sure that His teaching was never meant to confirm my congenital preference for safe investments and limited liabilities. I doubt whether there is anything in me that pleases Him less. And who could conceivably begin to love God on such a prudential ground -- because the security (so to speak) is better? Who could even include it among the grounds for loving? Would you choose a wife or a Friend -- if it comes to that, would you choose a dog -- in this spirit? One must be outside the world of love, of all loves, before one thus calculates."

C.S. Wisdom

Long time no post, sorry loyal fans. I struggle determining which things in my life are post-worthy, and when I think I've found something I am usually met with a sudden blast of sheepish humility, so then I just forget it and go eat ice cream instead. Given that this is the pattern, it would certainly appear that the whole blog thing is not for me.

Until I was thumbing through my favorite work of C.S. Lewis the other day, The Four Loves, and was reacquainted with this little gem:

"Christ did not teach and suffer that we might become, even in the natural loves, more careful of our own happiness. If a man is not uncalculating towards the earthly beloveds whom he has seen, he is none the more likely to be so towards God whom he has not. We shall draw nearer to God not by trying to avoid the sufferings inherent in all loves, but by accepting them and offering them to Him; throwing away all defensive armour. If our hearts need to be broken, and if He chooses this as the way in which they should break, so be it." pg. 92

Well shoot, Clive, you sure know how to speak to my soul. I'm sorry to say that my cursory experiences in this realm have left me somewhat, probably unduly, jaded, and rife with all sorts of mental and emotional armour. Clive brings me back to what it's all about.

I should still keep some armour though, right? You can't go out into that big, scary dating world with just a loin cloth, now, can you? (Pardon the unsettling image)

I have much to learn.