Recently, a giant cricket has taken the internet by storm. Many people have commented on how ghastly it appears. A disgusted relative of mine asked, "Why would the Lord create such a thing?" My response was something like, "Maybe the Lord has a different conception of beauty than you or me."
What does the Lord love? Variety must be on the list, since His creations are loaded with it. Millions of species share the planet with us, many of them looking like monsters from fiction and fantasy. What about us? Do we love variety, or homogeneity? Some cultures have the luxury of living without luxuries, outdoors in the shining sun, eating what food is available. Variety probably excites them. But here in my culture (that produced this computer I am using) we value uniformity, or at least we enthrone it. Look at any two cars, and they will probably look almost identical. Without labels, it is hard to tell one from another. My dad will see some vintage car from the fifties, and instantly declare what year it was manufactured, and the make and model. Each one was designed to be distinct. What happened?
The cheapness of making everything the same is probably the main driving force behind present day homogenization. Sameness also makes management and control easier. But we are also part of nature, made of the same elements, and created the same way—not on assembly lines—we each have unique genetics. This means that there is tremendous variety among people. We look, sound, and think very differently from each other, despite the fairly universal features we share. Even twins sport differences, and the gap usually widens as they age.
I am often amazed at how different two people can be, and yet each can be called lovely.
In D&C 88:130-133, the Lord actually calls something "beautiful." To conduct the school of the prophets, the teacher has to go through a procedure with each member: "And when he cometh into the house of God, for he should be first in the house—behold, this is beautiful...let him offer himself in prayer upon his knees before God...And when any shall come in after him, let the teacher arise, and, with uplifted hands to heaven, yea, even directly, salute his brother or brethren with these words: Art thou a brother or brethren? I salute you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in token or remembrance of the everlasting covenant, in which covenant I receive you to fellowship, in a determination that is fixed, immovable, and unchangeable, to be your friend and brother through the grace of God in the bonds of love, to walk in all the commandments of God blameless, in thanksgiving, forever and ever. Amen."
What does the Lord love? Variety must be on the list, since His creations are loaded with it. Millions of species share the planet with us, many of them looking like monsters from fiction and fantasy. What about us? Do we love variety, or homogeneity? Some cultures have the luxury of living without luxuries, outdoors in the shining sun, eating what food is available. Variety probably excites them. But here in my culture (that produced this computer I am using) we value uniformity, or at least we enthrone it. Look at any two cars, and they will probably look almost identical. Without labels, it is hard to tell one from another. My dad will see some vintage car from the fifties, and instantly declare what year it was manufactured, and the make and model. Each one was designed to be distinct. What happened?
The cheapness of making everything the same is probably the main driving force behind present day homogenization. Sameness also makes management and control easier. But we are also part of nature, made of the same elements, and created the same way—not on assembly lines—we each have unique genetics. This means that there is tremendous variety among people. We look, sound, and think very differently from each other, despite the fairly universal features we share. Even twins sport differences, and the gap usually widens as they age.
I am often amazed at how different two people can be, and yet each can be called lovely.
In D&C 88:130-133, the Lord actually calls something "beautiful." To conduct the school of the prophets, the teacher has to go through a procedure with each member: "And when he cometh into the house of God, for he should be first in the house—behold, this is beautiful...let him offer himself in prayer upon his knees before God...And when any shall come in after him, let the teacher arise, and, with uplifted hands to heaven, yea, even directly, salute his brother or brethren with these words: Art thou a brother or brethren? I salute you in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, in token or remembrance of the everlasting covenant, in which covenant I receive you to fellowship, in a determination that is fixed, immovable, and unchangeable, to be your friend and brother through the grace of God in the bonds of love, to walk in all the commandments of God blameless, in thanksgiving, forever and ever. Amen."
Relating to each other with love and loyalty is beautiful in the Lord's eyes.
God loves everyone, as what is probably the most oft-quoted verse in the New Testament reminds us: "God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten son..." That can sound maudlin or saccharin because it is quoted so often. When you think about who is included on the list, it becomes more amazing. I personally have a hard time driving and loving everyone at the same time. And this dilemma is exactly the point: "If a man say, I love God, and hateth his brother, he is a liar: for he that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not seen?" (1John 4:20). God sees, and foresaw, and foresees, all of us—each sin, transgression, misdeed, and all our outright rebellion. Compared to Hitler, the giant cricket is gorgeous. Yet he is also on the list.
A friend of mine recently lamented having a criminal record. It interferes with finding employment, despite being completely qualified to do the job, and having put immense distance, including weekly worthy Temple attendance, between past-self and present-self. "When do we get to stop suffering for our sins?" my friend asked me. In this life, at least, we torment each other and ourselves far more than God does for our sins, though He does "stir [us] up to repentance." God's willingness and ability to forgive seems incomprehensible, and yet what Jesus went through in the Garden of Gethsemane is proportional to the heinous nature of human atrocity. The redemptive offering is exactly tailored to the debt we have incurred. How ironic that one of the symptoms of attempting to be righteous is judgmental or critical accusation, slander. The word devil literally means "slanderer," "accuser," and the truthfulness of the accusations does not justify them in God's eyes. He is the only one who is qualified to judge another person, because only He knows exactly what was going on inside them, as well as what they did. He is also often more willing to forgive than we people who are not perfect.
John Bytheway pointed out that the context of the statement "be ye therefore perfect" is loving our enemies. In the Sermon On the Mount, Jesus says we should love our enemies, bless those who curse us, and pray for them who use us and persecute us. God makes sun and rain to land on the good and the evil; we should not discriminate either. If we love our friends only, how are we any better than the rest of the world? And after expressing these ideas, THEN Jesus says to be perfect "even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matt. 5:48).
Love is easy to feel for the obviously beautiful things and people we see; "beauty" is anything that causes us to feel joy. It is much harder to muster love for giant crickets and poor drivers who make you miss the green light by driving slowly. Yet the Lord has done this—everyone falls under the umbrella of His love, or at least His concern and loving attention. It is true that some people have gone so far, received so many chances to change and return to Him, that law dictates their destruction. Sodom and Gomorrah are one example. But the Lord mourned the condition of the damned when Enoch saw Him weeping for them (Moses 7:29-40). C. S. Lewis expressed the idea that hell cannot hold heaven captive forever through the instrument of heaven's compassion for hell's fallen and dark state; heaven is happiness, not sorrow.
The Lord's mercy is extreme. The Book of Mormon shows us the "vilest of sinners" becoming mighty missionaries, and their murderous converts becoming saintly pacifists who will not even fight in self-defense. None of this compares to any offense ever committed against me, but still I nurse grudges for petty offenses.
To be like God is to be able to forgive and love others, and to see the beauty and potential hidden deep inside the muddy or occasionally yucky exterior. God does the same with us.
