Something about this earth life scared one third of the spirit children of God so badly that they rebelled rather than come here. I suspect it was sin, and having one's weaknesses made public before God, angels, and everyone on earth who happened to witness our folly unfold in mortality. Satan's position before he rebelled was described by Joseph Smith as "godified" (though this made up adjective was later edited to something grammatically correct). Who would want to fall from such a station to being a lowly, squirming baby, who then turned into a lowly man, not too smart and easily beset by sin? Ironically, it is piety that rebels most furiously. Sinners and publicans did not kill Jesus; it was the leaders, the hypocritical "whited sepulchers," who conspired to put Jesus to death. The most self-righteous people were the most offended at Jesus, while other people whose sins were enmeshed in their identities (prostitutes and tax collectors) would come to Jesus seeking forgiveness and healing. Those who admitted their sins and those who covered them up both needed Jesus' healing, but only the open sinners sought it openly. We see Nicodemus sneaking to Jesus at night, while sinners and publicans came to him in broad daylight.
What scared the third of the host of heaven away from this mortal probation? We can only guess, but my suspicion is that Celestial living had made sin repugnant to us. At least, the idea of soiling our reputations with sin was repugnant. Why would a loving Father send us here, in the moral quagmire of mortality? The stink and slime of evil and sin are nearly everywhere. I am continually thankful for Temples, and any other holy places I can stand in and be unmoved. But we do not have the opportunity of living in the Temple. We have to leave the grounds sometime, and go out into the wicked world that Adam faced after expulsion from the Garden of Eden. Why?
I recently helped to clean a sports arena after a well-attended event. It was decidedly Telestial. The raucous music, the dim lighting, the profligate waste of materials, the glorification of the unimportant, all left me less than impressed. There were many in attendance who were "a little lower than the angels," no doubt, but overall, it just had and unsacred grittiness to it.
High school athletes from all over the state came to fight for the championship titles in their individual events. I saw numerous runners-up crying in the corridors below the bleachers, and I wondered how ministering angels feel when they see one of us in distress. I wanted to say something like, "It will be alright! You have just as much of a chance at experiencing peace, love, joy, as the guy you lost to!" But my status as a garbage collector created a formal barrier, and I walked silently by them. I also saw victors, elated at their successes. One in particular was so stereotypical, I chuckled warmly inside. He was still in his uniform, and he was floating along in the air, holding hands with his cheerleader girlfriend, also in uniform. I imagined the relationship unfolding over the years as they traded in those uniforms for the street clothes of drudgery. I wondered if their relationship had reached its peak, their "good old days" playing out right before my eyes.
Then there was the audience.
I struggle with junk food addiction, sugar having been my mood-altering drug of choice for most of my life. I have recently sworn off anything sweet but fruit, and my resolve is often tested. But cleaning the bleachers after the game temporarily inoculated me against the desire for junk food. The audience of about two thousand spectators had turned the arena into a diaper. Imagine all your favorite candies, cookies, sodas, popcorn, candied nuts, desserts, etc., pulverized, intermingled, partly eaten, partly trampled, hidden in nooks and crannies of folding chairs, scattered on the ground. Fruit, nachos, half-eaten burritos, and a total weight of one fourth of a pig's worth of meat, combined with seven trick-or-treat bags of half eaten chocolates, hardtack, gummy candies, wads of chewing gum, were spilled on the ground, and ground to crumbs. My shoes stuck to the floor after exposure to all this, and made unsavory noises as I walked. Cups with half-drunk sodas had to be poured into five gallon buckets, forming a cocktail of ten different soft drinks whose confused collision of normally-friendly scents induced nausea in me. This slurry would slosh as I carried the buckets, and wet the legs of my pants. Emptying all of the solid waste into the giant, noisy garbage compactor was an ordeal for the nose, since microbes had already begun to digest much of it. (I suspect the half-drunken bottles of chocolate milk provided most of the impetus for the early putrification and fermentation I smelled.)
Emptying trash from the isolated heights of the presidential suite was a new experience. Glass separated me from smell and sounds of the mob below, and the back windows gave a great view of the city around the arena. The commanding position made me forget my lowly status as a custodian. Yet I knew that two floors directly below me lay my stinking coworker, the trash compactor, to whom my job required that I return with another load.
Exposure to this disgusting mess reduced the appeal of its constituent ingredients greatly. I wondered to myself if this is part of the goal of sending us into mortality, to "know good from evil." Even if only experienced second-hand, the outcomes of sin make it abhorrent.
Rebellion against exposure to something equivalent to this in mortality probably drove many who chose not to come here. Ironically, they are here anyway, and are fully exposed to the ugliness, working even to instigate it. Satan boasted he would save us all; now he works to destroy us all. The title "devil" literally means "slanderer," "accuser." It was pointed out poignantly by Hugh Nibley that Satan does not accuse us falsely; we furnish him with all his ammunition ourselves. Jesus, on the other hand, bears the titles of Savior and Advocate. He intercedes on our behalf, absorbing the furious impact of the punishment for sin. He also covers our sins, absolving us of guilt ("Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more." (John 8:11)). He pleads on our behalf, like a defense attorney, that we can have multiple chances to repent, and be forgiven. And He insists that to be forgiven, we must first forgive each other.
He descended into this pigsty to save us from it, and to clean us up afterward. Showering felt good after being exposed to the grime of the arena; peace and silence at home gave my ringing ears a chance to recuperate from the din of crowd and music. Fruit, washed and modest, tasted good, and I did not covet candy so much.
I do not want to be guilty of snobbery and self-righteousness here. Yes, I recognize that sports and arenas and candy are not hell itself; taken together, however, the can do a good impression of it.
Tuesday, February 21, 2012
Thursday, February 16, 2012
The Name Of Christ
Why do we end our prayers and ordinances in the name of Jesus Christ?
This question was asked to me by an investigator I baptized on my mission, and I had no adequate answer. Our prayers are heard directly by Heavenly Father; they require no intermediary to be heard. I have an inkling about at least part of the reason, and below are some fairly disjointed thoughts on the subject.
Mosiah 26:18: "Yea, blessed is this people who are willing to bear my name; for in my name shall they be called; and they are mine." We are aware that we have taken the name of Christ onto ourselves through baptismal covenants. We are not as aware of His reciprocation—He took our names, and therefore, our burdens and the penalties for our sins onto Himself in Gethsemane and on the cross. Just as taking our names onto Himself redirects the collision of brutal justice so that He absorbs their impact, so taking His name onto ourselves gives us access to what His righteous life merited—His peace, love, joy, power, some privileges (eventually all), and even His very nature (eventually all of it).
Jesus speaks to His twelve among the Nephites: "And whoso taketh upon him my name, and endureth to the end, the same shall be saved at the last day. Therefore, whatsoever ye shall do, ye shall do it in my name; therefore ye shall call the church in my name; and ye shall call upon the Father in my name that he will bless the church for my sake" (3Ne. 27:6-7).
I wince when people at the podium, whether praying or giving talks, hurriedly slur or mumble through a perfunctory pronunciation of the name of Jesus Christ. In D&C 63:58-64, the Lord gives this warning: "For this is a day of warning, and not a day of many words. For I, the Lord, am not to be mocked in the last days. Behold, I am from above, and my power lieth beneath. I am over all, and in all, and through all, and search all things, and the day cometh that all things shall be subject unto me. Behold, I am Alpha and Omega, even Jesus Christ. Wherefore, let all men beware how they take my name in their lips—For behold, verily I say, that many there be who are under this condemnation, who use the name of the Lord, and use it in vain, having not authority. Wherefore, let the church repent of their sins, and I, the Lord, will own them; otherwise they shall be cut off. Remember that that which cometh from above is sacred, and must be spoken with care, and by constraint of the Spirit..." Usually, the commandment "thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" is associated with profanity, but I believe it extends to casualness, too.
Parley P. Pratt records Joseph Smith's authorized use of the name of Christ in the strangest of circumstances. He, Joseph, and others were in chains in Missouri, surrounded by their enemies. He records: "...in a room without beds, chairs, or any other convenience, and chained...together...one man’s ankle to another...In this situation we were guarded night and day by about ten men at a time, who stood over us with loaded pistols in hand. At night we were all stretched on the floor in a row upon our backs...and the noise of the guards effectually prevented sleep. In one of those tedious nights...our ears and hearts had been pained, while we had listened for hours to the obscene jests, the horrid oaths, the dreadful blasphemies, and filthy language of our guards...as they recounted to each other their deeds of rapine, murder, robbery, etc., which they had committed...They even boasted of defiling by force, wives, daughters, and virgins, and of shooting or dashing out the brains of men, women, and children. I had listened till I became so disgusted, shocked, horrified...that I could scarcely refrain from rising upon my feet and rebuking the guards, but had said nothing to Joseph, or any one else, although I lay next to him and knew he was awake. On a sudden he arose to his feet, and spoke in a voice of thunder, or as the roaring lion, uttering, as near as I can recollect, the following words: 'SILENCE—Ye fiends of the infernal pit. In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you, and command you to be still; I will not live another minute, and hear such language. Cease such talk, or you or I die THIS MINUTE.' He ceased to speak. He stood erect in terrible majesty. Chained...calm...and dignified as an angel, he looked down upon the quailing guards...whose knees smote together, and who, shrinking into a corner, or crouching at his feet, begged his pardon, and remained quiet till a change of guards."
This question was asked to me by an investigator I baptized on my mission, and I had no adequate answer. Our prayers are heard directly by Heavenly Father; they require no intermediary to be heard. I have an inkling about at least part of the reason, and below are some fairly disjointed thoughts on the subject.
Mosiah 26:18: "Yea, blessed is this people who are willing to bear my name; for in my name shall they be called; and they are mine." We are aware that we have taken the name of Christ onto ourselves through baptismal covenants. We are not as aware of His reciprocation—He took our names, and therefore, our burdens and the penalties for our sins onto Himself in Gethsemane and on the cross. Just as taking our names onto Himself redirects the collision of brutal justice so that He absorbs their impact, so taking His name onto ourselves gives us access to what His righteous life merited—His peace, love, joy, power, some privileges (eventually all), and even His very nature (eventually all of it).
Jesus speaks to His twelve among the Nephites: "And whoso taketh upon him my name, and endureth to the end, the same shall be saved at the last day. Therefore, whatsoever ye shall do, ye shall do it in my name; therefore ye shall call the church in my name; and ye shall call upon the Father in my name that he will bless the church for my sake" (3Ne. 27:6-7).
I wince when people at the podium, whether praying or giving talks, hurriedly slur or mumble through a perfunctory pronunciation of the name of Jesus Christ. In D&C 63:58-64, the Lord gives this warning: "For this is a day of warning, and not a day of many words. For I, the Lord, am not to be mocked in the last days. Behold, I am from above, and my power lieth beneath. I am over all, and in all, and through all, and search all things, and the day cometh that all things shall be subject unto me. Behold, I am Alpha and Omega, even Jesus Christ. Wherefore, let all men beware how they take my name in their lips—For behold, verily I say, that many there be who are under this condemnation, who use the name of the Lord, and use it in vain, having not authority. Wherefore, let the church repent of their sins, and I, the Lord, will own them; otherwise they shall be cut off. Remember that that which cometh from above is sacred, and must be spoken with care, and by constraint of the Spirit..." Usually, the commandment "thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" is associated with profanity, but I believe it extends to casualness, too.
Parley P. Pratt records Joseph Smith's authorized use of the name of Christ in the strangest of circumstances. He, Joseph, and others were in chains in Missouri, surrounded by their enemies. He records: "...in a room without beds, chairs, or any other convenience, and chained...together...one man’s ankle to another...In this situation we were guarded night and day by about ten men at a time, who stood over us with loaded pistols in hand. At night we were all stretched on the floor in a row upon our backs...and the noise of the guards effectually prevented sleep. In one of those tedious nights...our ears and hearts had been pained, while we had listened for hours to the obscene jests, the horrid oaths, the dreadful blasphemies, and filthy language of our guards...as they recounted to each other their deeds of rapine, murder, robbery, etc., which they had committed...They even boasted of defiling by force, wives, daughters, and virgins, and of shooting or dashing out the brains of men, women, and children. I had listened till I became so disgusted, shocked, horrified...that I could scarcely refrain from rising upon my feet and rebuking the guards, but had said nothing to Joseph, or any one else, although I lay next to him and knew he was awake. On a sudden he arose to his feet, and spoke in a voice of thunder, or as the roaring lion, uttering, as near as I can recollect, the following words: 'SILENCE—Ye fiends of the infernal pit. In the name of Jesus Christ I rebuke you, and command you to be still; I will not live another minute, and hear such language. Cease such talk, or you or I die THIS MINUTE.' He ceased to speak. He stood erect in terrible majesty. Chained...calm...and dignified as an angel, he looked down upon the quailing guards...whose knees smote together, and who, shrinking into a corner, or crouching at his feet, begged his pardon, and remained quiet till a change of guards."
I wonder two things—did Joseph play a card the Lord had offered him, that any prophecy he uttered would be fulfilled automatically; and, did the guards receive a personal witness from the Holy Ghost that his prophecy would indeed be fulfilled if they did not "cease?" In any case, the power of commanding anyone, or anything, in the name of Jesus Christ is evident here, and it should give us pause, make us aware of the import of His name.
Mosiah 3:17: "And moreover, I say unto you, that there shall be no other name given nor any other way nor means whereby salvation can come unto the children of men, only in and through the name of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent." When we are baptized, it is as if we are born into His family, and members of a family share a name. We are collectively referred to as the Church of Jesus Christ. He has other names; John the Baptist ordained Joseph Smith and Oliver Cowdery to the Aaronic priesthood "...in the name of Messiah..." (D&C 13:1). Heavenly Father consistently refers to Christ as "my beloved Son."
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last" (Rev. 22:13). Maybe we end our prayers and ordinances in His name because He IS the end. Creation could not proceed until He agreed to be a propitiating sacrifice, and the plan will not be complete until He says, "the work is done."
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Like God
I want to start this entry with an uncharacteristically long quote from a talk by Elder Holland:
"I speak of Nephi's obligation to slay Laban in order to preserve a record, save a people, and ultimately lead to the restoration of the gospel in the dispensation of the fulness of times. How much is hanging in the balance as Nephi stands over the drunken and adversarial Laban I cannot say, but it is a very great deal indeed.
"The only problem is that we know this, but Nephi does not. And regardless of how much is at stake, how can he do this thing? He is a good person, perhaps even a well-educated person. He has been taught from the very summit of Sinai "Thou shalt not kill." And he has made gospel covenants.
"I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban; but...I shrunk and would that I might not slay him" (1 Nephi 4:10). A bitter test? A desire to shrink? Sound familiar? We don't know why those plates could not have been obtained some other way—perhaps accidentally left at the plate polishers one night or maybe falling out the back of Laban's chariot on a Sabbath afternoon.
"For that matter, why didn't Nephi just leave this story out of the book altogether? Why didn't he say something like, "And after much effort and anguish of spirit, I did obtain the plates of Laban and did depart into the wilderness unto the tent of my father?" At the very least he might have buried the account somewhere in the Isaiah chapters, thus guaranteeing that it would have gone undiscovered up to this very day.
"But there it is, squarely in the beginning of the book—page 8—where even the most casual reader will see it and must deal with it. It is not intended that either Nephi or we be spared the struggle of this account.
"I believe that story was placed in the very opening verses of a 531-page book and then told in painfully specific detail in order to focus every reader of that record on the absolutely fundamental gospel issue of obedience and submission to the communicated will of the Lord. If Nephi cannot yield to this terribly painful command, if he cannot bring himself to obey, then it is entirely probable that he can never succeed or survive in the tasks that lie just ahead.
"'I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded' (1 Nephi 3:7). I confess that I wince a little when I hear that promise quoted so casually among us. Jesus knew what that kind of commitment would entail, and so now does Nephi. And so will a host of others before it is over. That vow took Christ to the cross on Calvary, and it remains at the heart of every Christian covenant. 'I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded.' Well, we shall see." (The Will of the Father in All Things, Jeffrey R. Holland, talk given at Brigham Young University, 17 Jan. 1989.)
My point in quoting this giant swath of Elder Holland's talk is to frame the idea I want to convey about God and Christ. Just as we blithely quote 1Ne 3:7, not cognizant of the full import of what we are saying, I also think that we have a similar problem with somnambulism when we use the phrase "like God." It is a truism to to say we do not know all that entails, but there are parts of it that even we can begin to comprehend, yet also remain unconscious of. We think of God and Christ enthroned and perfected, wielding power and loving the billions who inhabit innumerable earths like this one. We also imagine the absence of imperfections in character, mind, and body, and that is mainly what we refer to in Sunday school when we use the phrases "like God," or "more like God."
During his interview with the angel who guided Nephi through his vision, he asked Nephi, "Knowest thou the condescension of God?" (1Ne. 11:16). We usually think of condescension in a negative light—equals looking down their noses at each other with an inflated sense of superiority offend us. Just how far did Jesus descend? Nephi was given a dirty, repugnant, difficult chore by the Lord, and he obeyed. Jesus sank even lower at the request of His Father—far lower than anyone ever has. When He wrought out the Atonement, the One who had been above all things sank below all things. The Gospel writers depict Jesus praying in agony throughout the ordeal, from beginning to end, continuously turned to and addressing His Father in heaven. We do not get to hear or see the Father in the narrative, but Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac gives us a glimpse into what it must have been like for Him as well. Not only did Jesus abase Himself and put everything on the altar; John 3:16 reminds us that His Father was also sacrificing Someone, putting the very best thing He had on the altar as well. They both sacrificed to their uttermost limits. "Knowest thou the condescension of God?" No, I think we are among the blissful ignorant, for the most part.
And this sacrifice falls inside the definition of "like God." To be like Him is to be able and willing to put our most valuable possession on the altar simply because it is the right thing to do. Moroni describes Jesus as speaking "in plain humility" after His resurrection (Ether 12:39). It almost seems blasphemous to mention; a humble deity? Why retain this virtue? Apparently, at least, is still needed. Patience with us, His wayward children, surely embodies humility; and the crucial moment of the plan was the Atonement, a scraping, bowing, rock-bottom burden. It is worth noting that Jesus suffered more than anyone, and deserved it less than anyone, that is, not at all. Irony and contradiction beyond reason infected that bitter cup He accepted.
It is easy to forget, in describing His suffering and death, that OUR sins were what He was carrying. We are enjoying fair weather and pleasant, congenial moments interspersed with joy, specifically because of what He went through. Blood symbolizes death; oil, or the application of it, represents life. Jesus' title of Messiah, Christ, means "The Anointed One." He bought the judgement seat with His blood, and bought us with it too. I cannot pin it on any scripture, but I am more and more convinced that our little sacrifice and His massive sacrifice connect us somehow, keep us attached to Jesus.
I have quoted this passage of scripture before, D&C 138: 12-16, but I will quote it again. Joseph F. Smith saw a vision of the spirit world, and there were multitudes of spirits awaiting the arrival of Jesus Christ after His death: "And there were gathered together in one place an innumerable company of the spirits of the just, who had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus while they lived in mortality; And who had offered sacrifice in the similitude of the great sacrifice of the Son of God, and had suffered tribulation in their Redeemer’s name. All these had departed the mortal life, firm in the hope of a glorious resurrection, through the grace of God the Father and his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. I beheld that they were filled with joy and gladness, and were rejoicing together because the day of their deliverance was at hand. They were assembled awaiting the advent of the Son of God into the spirit world..." (my emphasis).
Notice that a critical difference between the candidates for Celestial life and all others is listed here, rather than in D&C 76. It is easy to scan the description of Terrestrial inhabitants and wonder why they are excluded if they were among "the honorable men of the earth." But being good is not enough; they lacked this one quality of God that shines above all others, that of absolute obedience manifest as a 100% sacrifice. (100% of what the individual can bear, not what Jesus or Abraham could; the math of the widow's mite applies here too, I believe. In my opinion, this kind of sacrifice is THE qualification for exaltation; a person who makes such a sacrifice is a viable spirit, a candidate for exaltation from that point forward.) The willingness and ability to shoulder enormous, distasteful burdens distinguishes God from those who do not make it to where He is. We ought to keep this in mind when we use the phrase "like God."
Here is a post-script dedicated to a friend who responded to some of the ideas I have written above with trepidation ("People obeying like that will go around doing all sorts of crazy things" was her general objection. I will respond with another quote from Elder Holland's talk:
"As Elder Neal A. Maxwell wrote recently, 'In today's society, at the mere mention of the words obedience and submissiveness hackles rise and people are put on nervous alert...People promptly furnish examples from secular history to illustrate how obedience to unwise authority and servility to bad leaders have caused much human misery and suffering. It is difficult, therefore, to get a hearing for what the words obedience and submissiveness really mean—even when the clarifying phrase, "to God," is attached.'" Excuses will not fly. I hope knowing the price of exaltation does not give us too much fear; faith in Christ and His Atonement give me confidence. He suffered through His ordeal alone so that He could attend each of us in our smaller Gethsemanes.
"Let me use an example from what is often considered by foes, and even by
some friends, as the most unsavory moment in the entire Book of Mormon.
I choose it precisely because there is so much in it that has given
offense to many. It is pretty much a bitter cup all the way around.
"I speak of Nephi's obligation to slay Laban in order to preserve a record, save a people, and ultimately lead to the restoration of the gospel in the dispensation of the fulness of times. How much is hanging in the balance as Nephi stands over the drunken and adversarial Laban I cannot say, but it is a very great deal indeed.
"The only problem is that we know this, but Nephi does not. And regardless of how much is at stake, how can he do this thing? He is a good person, perhaps even a well-educated person. He has been taught from the very summit of Sinai "Thou shalt not kill." And he has made gospel covenants.
"I was constrained by the Spirit that I should kill Laban; but...I shrunk and would that I might not slay him" (1 Nephi 4:10). A bitter test? A desire to shrink? Sound familiar? We don't know why those plates could not have been obtained some other way—perhaps accidentally left at the plate polishers one night or maybe falling out the back of Laban's chariot on a Sabbath afternoon.
"For that matter, why didn't Nephi just leave this story out of the book altogether? Why didn't he say something like, "And after much effort and anguish of spirit, I did obtain the plates of Laban and did depart into the wilderness unto the tent of my father?" At the very least he might have buried the account somewhere in the Isaiah chapters, thus guaranteeing that it would have gone undiscovered up to this very day.
"But there it is, squarely in the beginning of the book—page 8—where even the most casual reader will see it and must deal with it. It is not intended that either Nephi or we be spared the struggle of this account.
"I believe that story was placed in the very opening verses of a 531-page book and then told in painfully specific detail in order to focus every reader of that record on the absolutely fundamental gospel issue of obedience and submission to the communicated will of the Lord. If Nephi cannot yield to this terribly painful command, if he cannot bring himself to obey, then it is entirely probable that he can never succeed or survive in the tasks that lie just ahead.
"'I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded' (1 Nephi 3:7). I confess that I wince a little when I hear that promise quoted so casually among us. Jesus knew what that kind of commitment would entail, and so now does Nephi. And so will a host of others before it is over. That vow took Christ to the cross on Calvary, and it remains at the heart of every Christian covenant. 'I will go and do the things which the Lord hath commanded.' Well, we shall see." (The Will of the Father in All Things, Jeffrey R. Holland, talk given at Brigham Young University, 17 Jan. 1989.)
My point in quoting this giant swath of Elder Holland's talk is to frame the idea I want to convey about God and Christ. Just as we blithely quote 1Ne 3:7, not cognizant of the full import of what we are saying, I also think that we have a similar problem with somnambulism when we use the phrase "like God." It is a truism to to say we do not know all that entails, but there are parts of it that even we can begin to comprehend, yet also remain unconscious of. We think of God and Christ enthroned and perfected, wielding power and loving the billions who inhabit innumerable earths like this one. We also imagine the absence of imperfections in character, mind, and body, and that is mainly what we refer to in Sunday school when we use the phrases "like God," or "more like God."
During his interview with the angel who guided Nephi through his vision, he asked Nephi, "Knowest thou the condescension of God?" (1Ne. 11:16). We usually think of condescension in a negative light—equals looking down their noses at each other with an inflated sense of superiority offend us. Just how far did Jesus descend? Nephi was given a dirty, repugnant, difficult chore by the Lord, and he obeyed. Jesus sank even lower at the request of His Father—far lower than anyone ever has. When He wrought out the Atonement, the One who had been above all things sank below all things. The Gospel writers depict Jesus praying in agony throughout the ordeal, from beginning to end, continuously turned to and addressing His Father in heaven. We do not get to hear or see the Father in the narrative, but Abraham's sacrifice of Isaac gives us a glimpse into what it must have been like for Him as well. Not only did Jesus abase Himself and put everything on the altar; John 3:16 reminds us that His Father was also sacrificing Someone, putting the very best thing He had on the altar as well. They both sacrificed to their uttermost limits. "Knowest thou the condescension of God?" No, I think we are among the blissful ignorant, for the most part.
And this sacrifice falls inside the definition of "like God." To be like Him is to be able and willing to put our most valuable possession on the altar simply because it is the right thing to do. Moroni describes Jesus as speaking "in plain humility" after His resurrection (Ether 12:39). It almost seems blasphemous to mention; a humble deity? Why retain this virtue? Apparently, at least, is still needed. Patience with us, His wayward children, surely embodies humility; and the crucial moment of the plan was the Atonement, a scraping, bowing, rock-bottom burden. It is worth noting that Jesus suffered more than anyone, and deserved it less than anyone, that is, not at all. Irony and contradiction beyond reason infected that bitter cup He accepted.
It is easy to forget, in describing His suffering and death, that OUR sins were what He was carrying. We are enjoying fair weather and pleasant, congenial moments interspersed with joy, specifically because of what He went through. Blood symbolizes death; oil, or the application of it, represents life. Jesus' title of Messiah, Christ, means "The Anointed One." He bought the judgement seat with His blood, and bought us with it too. I cannot pin it on any scripture, but I am more and more convinced that our little sacrifice and His massive sacrifice connect us somehow, keep us attached to Jesus.
I have quoted this passage of scripture before, D&C 138: 12-16, but I will quote it again. Joseph F. Smith saw a vision of the spirit world, and there were multitudes of spirits awaiting the arrival of Jesus Christ after His death: "And there were gathered together in one place an innumerable company of the spirits of the just, who had been faithful in the testimony of Jesus while they lived in mortality; And who had offered sacrifice in the similitude of the great sacrifice of the Son of God, and had suffered tribulation in their Redeemer’s name. All these had departed the mortal life, firm in the hope of a glorious resurrection, through the grace of God the Father and his Only Begotten Son, Jesus Christ. I beheld that they were filled with joy and gladness, and were rejoicing together because the day of their deliverance was at hand. They were assembled awaiting the advent of the Son of God into the spirit world..." (my emphasis).
Notice that a critical difference between the candidates for Celestial life and all others is listed here, rather than in D&C 76. It is easy to scan the description of Terrestrial inhabitants and wonder why they are excluded if they were among "the honorable men of the earth." But being good is not enough; they lacked this one quality of God that shines above all others, that of absolute obedience manifest as a 100% sacrifice. (100% of what the individual can bear, not what Jesus or Abraham could; the math of the widow's mite applies here too, I believe. In my opinion, this kind of sacrifice is THE qualification for exaltation; a person who makes such a sacrifice is a viable spirit, a candidate for exaltation from that point forward.) The willingness and ability to shoulder enormous, distasteful burdens distinguishes God from those who do not make it to where He is. We ought to keep this in mind when we use the phrase "like God."
Here is a post-script dedicated to a friend who responded to some of the ideas I have written above with trepidation ("People obeying like that will go around doing all sorts of crazy things" was her general objection. I will respond with another quote from Elder Holland's talk:
"As Elder Neal A. Maxwell wrote recently, 'In today's society, at the mere mention of the words obedience and submissiveness hackles rise and people are put on nervous alert...People promptly furnish examples from secular history to illustrate how obedience to unwise authority and servility to bad leaders have caused much human misery and suffering. It is difficult, therefore, to get a hearing for what the words obedience and submissiveness really mean—even when the clarifying phrase, "to God," is attached.'" Excuses will not fly. I hope knowing the price of exaltation does not give us too much fear; faith in Christ and His Atonement give me confidence. He suffered through His ordeal alone so that He could attend each of us in our smaller Gethsemanes.
Tuesday, February 7, 2012
Some Keys to Understanding the Temple
I damaged my car trying to get to the Temple on time to watch a near-and-dear kindred receive her endowment. I barely made it. When I saw her afterward, the look of perplexity on her face was obvious. "Here come the questions," her sister whispered.
Not that it is right to discuss the Temple so openly, but we, as a group, began sharing insights to help a newcomer. In the course of the discussion, others in the party shared their insights about the Temple, and I was amazed at how backwards and misinformed some notions were. If that small sampling of what people think the Temple is about is in any way indicative of the broader membership of the Church, then confusion and ignorance, and a false confidence in our grasp of the subject, dominate the majority of the saints.
Perhaps what my uncle said on a related subject is true—those who understand it don't talk about it, while those who talk about it don't understand it.
I heard that President McKay, then in his nineties, looked at the ceiling thoughtfully in a meeting with the Twelve, and said something like, "You know, I think I'm finally starting to understand the Temple." This gives me hope and trepidation; hope because it is not a crime to feel lost regarding the meaning of the Temple, and trepidation because I was raised in a home furnished with a microwave, and have come to expect immediate and convenient solutions to problems and answers to questions. This sense of entitlement to convenience must be left at the door of the Temple; there are no privileged patrons. David O. McKay also said that the Temple, seen for what it is, shows us our step-by-step ascent back into the presence of God (said this at a fireside; it was written down and quoted by Truman G. Madsen).
Below is a list of things I have found helpful in gaining insight about the Temple. When I am doing the things I have listed below, understanding flows more readily. I present them as personal advice, rather than as commandments, excepting the scriptures I quote.
1. Keep covenants made in the Temple. This idea was taught to me by the President of the Temple where I served my mission.
2. Attend the Temple often. Obvious, yet easy to neglect. (Elder Scott suggests once a week, and makes up for those weeks he misses.)
3. Excel at the basics (Faith in Christ, Repentance, Baptism and other ordinances, the Gift of the Holy Ghost and actively receiving His influence and following His promptings, and enduring to the end in humility). In Alma 26:22, we read Ammon's great discovery about gaining access to deep mysteries: "Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance." Temple ordinances were given by revelation. As such, they are meant to be understood through revelation. Be worthy to receive it.
4. Keep our revelations, inspiration, manifestations, spiritual experiences, insights, etc., to ourselves (unless prompted to share them with others; see Alma 12:9, D&C 63:64). Joseph Smith said, "The reason we do not have the secrets of the Lord revealed unto us is because we do not keep them, but reveal them; we do not keep our own secrets, but reveal them to the world, even to our enemies, then how would we keep the secrets of the Lord? I can keep a secret till Doomsday" (TPJS, p. 195). Brigham Young later recapitulated this idea. It is tempting to think that we could drag someone who is a novice to our current level of understanding, but the Lord will determine who is ready to hear what, and grant us the information we need (D&C 121:33) when we need it (Isaiah 28:10). Respect others' right to enjoy discovery; don't expect to open the eyes of the blind, either (especially the willful blind).
5. Joseph Smith also taught that God had often sealed up the heavens because of covetousness in the church (TPJS, p. 9). Eliminate covetousness to foster an environment conducive to revelation.
6. Compare the scriptures with the Temple. The corresponding similarities and patterns between them are not accidental. Margaret Barker has called the Temple the "main character of the Bible." If anyone can read the Bible and come away convinced that the Temple is obsolete or irrelevant, they must be reading a different version than mine. Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus Christ, His Apostles, Paul, and many other outstanding figures of scripture share a fervent, ardent enthusiasm for the House of God. "The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up," says the scripture of Jesus as he cleansed the Temple with a braided whip (John 2:17). He called it "My house," and "My Father's house." The Lord avoids re-revealing what He has already said before, or what is already available. The Lord, Moroni, and other messengers who came to Joseph Smith from the other side of the veil, often quoted scripture to him. Revelations of things that had been lost, or had never been seen before at all, were recorded as revelations, and became new scripture. Look in the scriptures first to see if the answer is there before you storm into the Temple and demand an audience with the Temple President.
7. Compare the modern Temple with the ancient one. We cannot appropriately discuss the modern Temple publicly, but we can discuss the Tabernacle of Moses, the Temple of Solomon, and the Temple of Herod openly. We can learn a lot about the meaning of modern Temples by examining the original. Information about them is published in the Bible and other historical records that have surfaced over the centuries. Hugh Nibley has demonstrated that bits and pieces, and even large segments of the Temple are present throughout the ancient world, scattered across space and time. The phrase, "faith of our fathers" does apply to the Temple, not just for Israel, but all nations.
8. Ask the Lord what He wants us to learn, rather than coming up with our own questions. Often, our concerns and curiosity are far removed from His concerns for us. The Lord has His own agenda, and our goal should be to align our lives with His will, not the other way around. If our understanding is unaided by revelation, it is possible for us to come up with nonsense questions that are riddled with false premises. Asking the right questions is as important as being worthy and ready to receive answers. Miracles, revelations, and the things of the Spirit cannot be commanded by us; when we are impudent enough to set a date by which we expect the Lord to explain something to us, it will probably be met with silence. He has His own calendar, and getting ourselves in tune with it should be a major goal. (To accelerate readiness to receive new insights, see point 4.)
9. Work in the Temple. Instead of just being a patron, ask your Bishop about being recommended to work in the Temple. Unlike other positions in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is a calling we are encouraged to ask for. Spend hours marinating in the Spirit that permeates the Temple, and inspiration will flow.
10. Remember that there are multiple correct answers to questions about symbolism. The Temple is like an onion, with layers of meaning. I was amazed to learn that for certain math problems, there are multiple correct answers. Symbolism is the language of Temples, but one symbol can appropriately represent multiple things. For instance, the baptismal font represents the grave, both dying and burial in immersion, and resurrection in emerging from the water; it also represents a bath, or cleansing; it represents the womb, being completely surrounded by water and being born again as Jesus stipulates in John 3. And these are not a comprehensive list of possible interpretations of the symbolism of the baptismal font. If someone asks what the font represents, any of these answers would be correct, but none by itself would be complete. Fooling ourselves into thinking we have the "right" answer to any question about the Temple may be the single biggest barrier to understanding the Temple. Finding a new insight about the Temple is less like reaching a finish line in our education, and more like reaching a milestone along the way.
11. WAKE UP! Pay attention inside the Temple. Don't snooze through the session. Bring questions, be observant. Get plenty of sleep before you go. Leave your watch in you locker, as Elder Scott advised.
12. Care about it. Closely related to staying awake and observant inside and outside the Temple is simply caring about it. The apathy of dutiful quota fillers and clock watchers is rewarded in the cafeteria or a malt shop after the obligatory work is done; dessert for the one who loves the Temple IS the Temple itself. If we are interested in the things of this world, the Temple loses its luster, and vice versa. "Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson..." (D&C 121:35). If our hearts are far from the things God cares about (i.e., the Temple) how can we expect to find joy in it, let alone expect revelations and insights from God about it? On the other hand, how could a parent resist teaching a child who exhibits interest in his work and concerns? How could the Lord resist teaching us about something so dear to His heart when we cherish it too? A good way to gauge our distance from the Lord is to examine the intensity (or tepidness) of feelings about the Temple. His concern for it is white-hot; how warm is ours?
13. Get a broad education. Biology, astronomy, architecture, philosophy, literature, drama, history, math, art, and many other fields, have each played a role in expanding my understanding of the Temple. None of them have played a central role, but answers to questions reside there nonetheless. I am grateful to have lived in a society where I could learn about each field, if only enough to get a sampling of what was there. There are also excellent books written on the Temple itself by LDS authors and others which shed enormous light on the House of the Lord. Being educated about the world in which we live will make the world of the Temple open up that much more. Do not neglect your education, secular or spiritual.
14. Search for patterns in the Temple. God made nature and the Temple; nature is fraught with patterns. We see patterns in flowers, leaves, rocks, waves, and everything else in nature. Why should there not be patterns embedded in the instruction we receive in the Temple? Symmetry, repetition, and other patterns can be seen by one who is attuned to them.
The Temple is like a deep forest filled with trails. Ironically, the map that gives us a complete overview is only to be found at the end of the trail, after we have successfully navigated the forest and completed the journey. The Holy Ghost is our guide, not only in day-to-day living, but in understanding the Temple as well. He is the figurative compass, the iron rod that we can hold fast to in order to arrive safely at our destination. I personally believe that complete understanding of the Temple is impossible for mortals; it is too complex for the mind to grasp in its entirety. Insights about its meaning are available to us. The more I learn about it, the more improbable the idea that Joseph Smith concocted the endowment becomes. It is a constant witness to me that he is a true prophet. The Temple is as close to heaven on earth as I have ever come. It welds individuals into a community fit to receive the Savior, and so it is at once private and sacred, as well as indispensable to fostering unity among the Latter-day Saints. I love it, and hope to learn all there is to know about the Temple one day.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
21 February 2012
Post script:
Here is a quote from Brigham Young that should inform our quest to get our bearings in the search for understanding of the Temple. He explains what we are going into the "forest" to obtain:
"Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell."
There are no extraneous parts to the Temple, but this quote certainly gives us a sense of focus, what our target is, what we are there to collect. I think of it as a kind of thesis for the Temple endowment.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
3 May 2012
Post-post script:
I have related an idea to several people over the last few years, pertinent to the topic at hand. The Temple is protected by what I call "a Forcefield of Yawns." The endowment, and virtually everything else that happens in the Temple, has been publicized by anti-Mormons many times. The "what" has been broadcast, but as for the "why," every such source leaves you high and dry. What is the meaning of it all? They are clueless, helpless to give any salient response.
Even those who have a passing curiosity, who deliberately turn their brains on to grasp the symbolic significance of it all, hit a road block in their search for meaning. Those who are not meant to understand it, who are not yet ready, will listen to explanations for about five minutes before becoming distracted, emitting an involuntary yawn, and giving up. Isaiah's writings have a similar protection around them. Only those who are ready to understand it will get it, and the rest of us will suffer through his poetic prophecies in confusion and befuddlement. Jesus recommended studying the words of Isaiah to the Nephites, and this is the only instance of a specific prophet's writing receiving the Lord's endorsement. Everything else is a charge to search the scriptures diligently.
The Temple is similar; it is a personal journey of revelation, and we can be led to understand it by the Lord when we are in tune. Anti-Mormons and a few well-meaning members have tried to give personal interpretations of the Temple in public, and the are usually miles off the mark (in my humble opinion). Those who understand it don't talk about it; those who talk about it don't understand it. Those who put their brains to the work of comprehension without the aid of the Spirit are doomed to give up in confusion.
It is our responsibility to not rob each other of the thrill of discovery, not to taint what the Lord might teach another with our own speculations or even genuine personal revelations. Strangely, most of them are hidden in plain sight, camouflaged rather than completely obscured. When the Spirit touches our minds, THEN they snap into focus, and we spend the rest of our lives wondering how we did not notice them before.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
3 June 2012
Yet ANOTHER idea. This is as much a suggestion for enjoying the Temple as for understanding it:
Don't be in a hurry. If you are rushed, frantic, or anxious, your higher brain functions will be impeded, and you will be out of tune with the Spirit. God dwells in eternity, and He is not in a hurry; when we are "hectically engaged," as Elder Maxwell said, we will be out of tune. To enter the Temple is to leave the telestial world behind. Elder Scott admonished us to remove our watches when we go through the Temple. Again, God lives in eternity, not in a miniscule blip of time like us. The Temple gives us a bird's eye view of eternity; it is set on a hill for good reason, to point our eyes upward to God. Mountains filled the place of man-made structures anciently, and it requires a great deal of time and effort to arrive atop a mountain. You do not get on top of a mountain by accident. Nor do you sprint to the top. Patience is easier to speak and write about than to exhibit, but my witness is that calm entrance into the House of the Lord is rewarded with a richer spiritual outpouring than frantic worrying about schedules (or robotic performance of ordinances, for that matter).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
7 September 2013
Limber up your imagination; bring it to the Temple. I do not mean we should trivialize that which is sacred; just be prepared to see unexpected connections and meanings. (This approach is especially effective when you follow point 13. An educated imagination is the seedbed of innovation.)
Not that it is right to discuss the Temple so openly, but we, as a group, began sharing insights to help a newcomer. In the course of the discussion, others in the party shared their insights about the Temple, and I was amazed at how backwards and misinformed some notions were. If that small sampling of what people think the Temple is about is in any way indicative of the broader membership of the Church, then confusion and ignorance, and a false confidence in our grasp of the subject, dominate the majority of the saints.
Perhaps what my uncle said on a related subject is true—those who understand it don't talk about it, while those who talk about it don't understand it.
I heard that President McKay, then in his nineties, looked at the ceiling thoughtfully in a meeting with the Twelve, and said something like, "You know, I think I'm finally starting to understand the Temple." This gives me hope and trepidation; hope because it is not a crime to feel lost regarding the meaning of the Temple, and trepidation because I was raised in a home furnished with a microwave, and have come to expect immediate and convenient solutions to problems and answers to questions. This sense of entitlement to convenience must be left at the door of the Temple; there are no privileged patrons. David O. McKay also said that the Temple, seen for what it is, shows us our step-by-step ascent back into the presence of God (said this at a fireside; it was written down and quoted by Truman G. Madsen).
Below is a list of things I have found helpful in gaining insight about the Temple. When I am doing the things I have listed below, understanding flows more readily. I present them as personal advice, rather than as commandments, excepting the scriptures I quote.
1. Keep covenants made in the Temple. This idea was taught to me by the President of the Temple where I served my mission.
2. Attend the Temple often. Obvious, yet easy to neglect. (Elder Scott suggests once a week, and makes up for those weeks he misses.)
3. Excel at the basics (Faith in Christ, Repentance, Baptism and other ordinances, the Gift of the Holy Ghost and actively receiving His influence and following His promptings, and enduring to the end in humility). In Alma 26:22, we read Ammon's great discovery about gaining access to deep mysteries: "Yea, he that repenteth and exerciseth faith, and bringeth forth good works, and prayeth continually without ceasing—unto such it is given to know the mysteries of God; yea, unto such it shall be given to reveal things which never have been revealed; yea, and it shall be given unto such to bring thousands of souls to repentance, even as it has been given unto us to bring these our brethren to repentance." Temple ordinances were given by revelation. As such, they are meant to be understood through revelation. Be worthy to receive it.
4. Keep our revelations, inspiration, manifestations, spiritual experiences, insights, etc., to ourselves (unless prompted to share them with others; see Alma 12:9, D&C 63:64). Joseph Smith said, "The reason we do not have the secrets of the Lord revealed unto us is because we do not keep them, but reveal them; we do not keep our own secrets, but reveal them to the world, even to our enemies, then how would we keep the secrets of the Lord? I can keep a secret till Doomsday" (TPJS, p. 195). Brigham Young later recapitulated this idea. It is tempting to think that we could drag someone who is a novice to our current level of understanding, but the Lord will determine who is ready to hear what, and grant us the information we need (D&C 121:33) when we need it (Isaiah 28:10). Respect others' right to enjoy discovery; don't expect to open the eyes of the blind, either (especially the willful blind).
5. Joseph Smith also taught that God had often sealed up the heavens because of covetousness in the church (TPJS, p. 9). Eliminate covetousness to foster an environment conducive to revelation.
6. Compare the scriptures with the Temple. The corresponding similarities and patterns between them are not accidental. Margaret Barker has called the Temple the "main character of the Bible." If anyone can read the Bible and come away convinced that the Temple is obsolete or irrelevant, they must be reading a different version than mine. Moses, David, Solomon, Jesus Christ, His Apostles, Paul, and many other outstanding figures of scripture share a fervent, ardent enthusiasm for the House of God. "The zeal of thy house hath eaten me up," says the scripture of Jesus as he cleansed the Temple with a braided whip (John 2:17). He called it "My house," and "My Father's house." The Lord avoids re-revealing what He has already said before, or what is already available. The Lord, Moroni, and other messengers who came to Joseph Smith from the other side of the veil, often quoted scripture to him. Revelations of things that had been lost, or had never been seen before at all, were recorded as revelations, and became new scripture. Look in the scriptures first to see if the answer is there before you storm into the Temple and demand an audience with the Temple President.
7. Compare the modern Temple with the ancient one. We cannot appropriately discuss the modern Temple publicly, but we can discuss the Tabernacle of Moses, the Temple of Solomon, and the Temple of Herod openly. We can learn a lot about the meaning of modern Temples by examining the original. Information about them is published in the Bible and other historical records that have surfaced over the centuries. Hugh Nibley has demonstrated that bits and pieces, and even large segments of the Temple are present throughout the ancient world, scattered across space and time. The phrase, "faith of our fathers" does apply to the Temple, not just for Israel, but all nations.
8. Ask the Lord what He wants us to learn, rather than coming up with our own questions. Often, our concerns and curiosity are far removed from His concerns for us. The Lord has His own agenda, and our goal should be to align our lives with His will, not the other way around. If our understanding is unaided by revelation, it is possible for us to come up with nonsense questions that are riddled with false premises. Asking the right questions is as important as being worthy and ready to receive answers. Miracles, revelations, and the things of the Spirit cannot be commanded by us; when we are impudent enough to set a date by which we expect the Lord to explain something to us, it will probably be met with silence. He has His own calendar, and getting ourselves in tune with it should be a major goal. (To accelerate readiness to receive new insights, see point 4.)
9. Work in the Temple. Instead of just being a patron, ask your Bishop about being recommended to work in the Temple. Unlike other positions in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it is a calling we are encouraged to ask for. Spend hours marinating in the Spirit that permeates the Temple, and inspiration will flow.
10. Remember that there are multiple correct answers to questions about symbolism. The Temple is like an onion, with layers of meaning. I was amazed to learn that for certain math problems, there are multiple correct answers. Symbolism is the language of Temples, but one symbol can appropriately represent multiple things. For instance, the baptismal font represents the grave, both dying and burial in immersion, and resurrection in emerging from the water; it also represents a bath, or cleansing; it represents the womb, being completely surrounded by water and being born again as Jesus stipulates in John 3. And these are not a comprehensive list of possible interpretations of the symbolism of the baptismal font. If someone asks what the font represents, any of these answers would be correct, but none by itself would be complete. Fooling ourselves into thinking we have the "right" answer to any question about the Temple may be the single biggest barrier to understanding the Temple. Finding a new insight about the Temple is less like reaching a finish line in our education, and more like reaching a milestone along the way.
11. WAKE UP! Pay attention inside the Temple. Don't snooze through the session. Bring questions, be observant. Get plenty of sleep before you go. Leave your watch in you locker, as Elder Scott advised.
12. Care about it. Closely related to staying awake and observant inside and outside the Temple is simply caring about it. The apathy of dutiful quota fillers and clock watchers is rewarded in the cafeteria or a malt shop after the obligatory work is done; dessert for the one who loves the Temple IS the Temple itself. If we are interested in the things of this world, the Temple loses its luster, and vice versa. "Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world, and aspire to the honors of men, that they do not learn this one lesson..." (D&C 121:35). If our hearts are far from the things God cares about (i.e., the Temple) how can we expect to find joy in it, let alone expect revelations and insights from God about it? On the other hand, how could a parent resist teaching a child who exhibits interest in his work and concerns? How could the Lord resist teaching us about something so dear to His heart when we cherish it too? A good way to gauge our distance from the Lord is to examine the intensity (or tepidness) of feelings about the Temple. His concern for it is white-hot; how warm is ours?
13. Get a broad education. Biology, astronomy, architecture, philosophy, literature, drama, history, math, art, and many other fields, have each played a role in expanding my understanding of the Temple. None of them have played a central role, but answers to questions reside there nonetheless. I am grateful to have lived in a society where I could learn about each field, if only enough to get a sampling of what was there. There are also excellent books written on the Temple itself by LDS authors and others which shed enormous light on the House of the Lord. Being educated about the world in which we live will make the world of the Temple open up that much more. Do not neglect your education, secular or spiritual.
14. Search for patterns in the Temple. God made nature and the Temple; nature is fraught with patterns. We see patterns in flowers, leaves, rocks, waves, and everything else in nature. Why should there not be patterns embedded in the instruction we receive in the Temple? Symmetry, repetition, and other patterns can be seen by one who is attuned to them.
The Temple is like a deep forest filled with trails. Ironically, the map that gives us a complete overview is only to be found at the end of the trail, after we have successfully navigated the forest and completed the journey. The Holy Ghost is our guide, not only in day-to-day living, but in understanding the Temple as well. He is the figurative compass, the iron rod that we can hold fast to in order to arrive safely at our destination. I personally believe that complete understanding of the Temple is impossible for mortals; it is too complex for the mind to grasp in its entirety. Insights about its meaning are available to us. The more I learn about it, the more improbable the idea that Joseph Smith concocted the endowment becomes. It is a constant witness to me that he is a true prophet. The Temple is as close to heaven on earth as I have ever come. It welds individuals into a community fit to receive the Savior, and so it is at once private and sacred, as well as indispensable to fostering unity among the Latter-day Saints. I love it, and hope to learn all there is to know about the Temple one day.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
21 February 2012
Post script:
Here is a quote from Brigham Young that should inform our quest to get our bearings in the search for understanding of the Temple. He explains what we are going into the "forest" to obtain:
"Your endowment is, to receive all those ordinances in the house of the Lord, which are necessary for you, after you have departed this life, to enable you to walk back to the presence of the Father, passing the angels who stand as sentinels, being enabled to give them the key words, the signs and tokens, pertaining to the holy Priesthood, and gain your eternal exaltation in spite of earth and hell."
There are no extraneous parts to the Temple, but this quote certainly gives us a sense of focus, what our target is, what we are there to collect. I think of it as a kind of thesis for the Temple endowment.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
3 May 2012
Post-post script:
I have related an idea to several people over the last few years, pertinent to the topic at hand. The Temple is protected by what I call "a Forcefield of Yawns." The endowment, and virtually everything else that happens in the Temple, has been publicized by anti-Mormons many times. The "what" has been broadcast, but as for the "why," every such source leaves you high and dry. What is the meaning of it all? They are clueless, helpless to give any salient response.
Even those who have a passing curiosity, who deliberately turn their brains on to grasp the symbolic significance of it all, hit a road block in their search for meaning. Those who are not meant to understand it, who are not yet ready, will listen to explanations for about five minutes before becoming distracted, emitting an involuntary yawn, and giving up. Isaiah's writings have a similar protection around them. Only those who are ready to understand it will get it, and the rest of us will suffer through his poetic prophecies in confusion and befuddlement. Jesus recommended studying the words of Isaiah to the Nephites, and this is the only instance of a specific prophet's writing receiving the Lord's endorsement. Everything else is a charge to search the scriptures diligently.
The Temple is similar; it is a personal journey of revelation, and we can be led to understand it by the Lord when we are in tune. Anti-Mormons and a few well-meaning members have tried to give personal interpretations of the Temple in public, and the are usually miles off the mark (in my humble opinion). Those who understand it don't talk about it; those who talk about it don't understand it. Those who put their brains to the work of comprehension without the aid of the Spirit are doomed to give up in confusion.
It is our responsibility to not rob each other of the thrill of discovery, not to taint what the Lord might teach another with our own speculations or even genuine personal revelations. Strangely, most of them are hidden in plain sight, camouflaged rather than completely obscured. When the Spirit touches our minds, THEN they snap into focus, and we spend the rest of our lives wondering how we did not notice them before.
---------------------------------------------------------------------
3 June 2012
Yet ANOTHER idea. This is as much a suggestion for enjoying the Temple as for understanding it:
Don't be in a hurry. If you are rushed, frantic, or anxious, your higher brain functions will be impeded, and you will be out of tune with the Spirit. God dwells in eternity, and He is not in a hurry; when we are "hectically engaged," as Elder Maxwell said, we will be out of tune. To enter the Temple is to leave the telestial world behind. Elder Scott admonished us to remove our watches when we go through the Temple. Again, God lives in eternity, not in a miniscule blip of time like us. The Temple gives us a bird's eye view of eternity; it is set on a hill for good reason, to point our eyes upward to God. Mountains filled the place of man-made structures anciently, and it requires a great deal of time and effort to arrive atop a mountain. You do not get on top of a mountain by accident. Nor do you sprint to the top. Patience is easier to speak and write about than to exhibit, but my witness is that calm entrance into the House of the Lord is rewarded with a richer spiritual outpouring than frantic worrying about schedules (or robotic performance of ordinances, for that matter).
--------------------------------------------------------------------
7 September 2013
Limber up your imagination; bring it to the Temple. I do not mean we should trivialize that which is sacred; just be prepared to see unexpected connections and meanings. (This approach is especially effective when you follow point 13. An educated imagination is the seedbed of innovation.)
Friday, January 27, 2012
Building Pornography-Resistant Young Men
Much of what I've written on the subject of breaking free from pornography has focused on triage, emphasizing after-the-fact repair and repent tactics. I want instead to focus on prevention. Anything is possible for the one who doesn't have to accomplish it; I understand that talk is cheap, easier said than done, etc. I have no sons of my own. I will try to describe a scenario or process by which the armor of God could be more firmly anchored to our youth to prevent much misery and addiction. My apologies to those who are actually in the parenting and leadership trenches.
Much is said in the Church with regard to the law of chastity, and the attendant constellation of prohibitions, and sins of thought, emotion, desire, and action. The WHAT is drilled firmly into the minds of young men. The main deficiency I see in all this training is a lack of explanation about HOW. In 3Ne. 12, Jesus Himself identifies avoiding lust in one's heart as taking up one's cross. He probably did not use that metaphor lightly or accidentally. The enormity of the task is implied in the metaphor. It is one thing to say what needs to be done; it is a deeper task to explain how to do it.
Avoiding exposure is often mistakenly presented as a solution. Pornography is so widely available that exposure is probably inevitable. It is not so much a question of if, but when. Silence is not a solution either. This is like saying the dirt doesn't exist once it is swept under the carpet. Sin thrives in the dark, like fungus, and light tends to destroy it. Instilling shame and guilt in young men only reinforces concealment. Pornography should not be a young man's introduction into the subject of sex. He should ideally be introduced to the topic in the context of the plan of happiness, the context of reproduction and family.
[11 Jan. 2013 Update: Marriage is also not a solution. One dear friend of mine, a young woman, thought that the intensity of her passion for the young man she was marrying would curtail his appetite for pornographic images. Would she have made the same mistake if her fiance had been a drug addict? (They are now divorced.) Pornography addiction is different from sex in that it eliminates the insecurities and complexities of human relationships, i.e. rejection, criticism, physical illness, trust, misinterpretation of cues, petty bickering, expectations, etc. It is a fantasy world in which the addict can do no wrong, purely a spectator sport; it is not a sign of deprived sexual appetite, any more than drug abuse is, and actual sex performs different emotional functions than pornography consumption, which more closely parallels drug abuse. Real sex requires courage, a chief component of love; pornography shields the addict from the real or imagined pain of relationships and every other species of stress life throws at the addict, the very "fear" that "hath torment" (1 John 4:18). Marriage is an emotional adventure, full of perils; pornography addiction is an evasion of emotional entanglement and genuine intimacy.]
Who Will Jump?
Imagine being confronted with pornography as coming to the edge of a cliff and being tempted to jump despite painful consequences. Why do some jump while others step back? Curiosity and peer pressure may impel some. The scriptures teach us to have our "loins (reproductive equipment) girt about with truth," not ignorance. But if children have been taught to avoid pornography, there must be a deeper explanation as to why some cave to temptation while others walk away.
"Deep unmet needs" is a phrase one psychologist used to describe the motivation that originally drives addictive behavior. I say "originally" because the addiction takes on a life of its own, and becomes a need unto itself, as well as spackle to substitute for deficiencies in one's emotional needs. In other words, having emotional needs met will prevent participation in pornography most of the time. But who has all their needs met all the time? Precious few, it seems. Not everyone is popular, loved, etc. Not everyone has a driving passion or constructive hobby to fill their days with purpose and meaning. Not everyone has a sense of peace, security, control, connectedness, or joy in life. Sorrow, emptiness, frustration and anger, bottled up emotions, stress, and insecurities nip at all our heels one way or another. Salvation is not ultimately through basketball championships or getting attention from that special someone; it is through Jesus Christ, through His Atonement.
Hiding in a monastery, being so busy that there is no time for sin, pretending there is no problem, medication, internet filters, snapping your wrist with a rubber band, repeating the negative consequences of sin over and over, flogging self or others with accusation and guilt, seeking happiness and fulfillment, will all ultimately leave the problem unsolved. Behavior is only a manifestation of the problem, and working from the outside to amend behavior is not the same thing as solving the real problem that lies within.
Alma came out of his coma with this to say on the subject: "And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God" (Mosiah 27:25-26). This spiritual rebirth is the actual solution to the problem of pornography. It is a cure, whereas other tactics, like making sure emotional needs are met, internet filters, willpower, medication, and other human contrivances, are treatments. It is also the right and best form of prevention. Peter did not strap on water skis when he jumped out of the boat to walk on the water, yet we do this in a figurative sense when we try to find a solution to the problem of pornography in our own earthly bag of tricks. "Having no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually" (Mosiah 5:2). This describes a solution to the real problem of pornography, the condition of the heart. Even if we could apply unlimited willpower and resist, resist, resist temptations until we die, we would still be unfit for heaven because of internal problems, unrighteous desires that need resisting. And even if we could destroy all pornographic material on earth, it would still exist in the minds and hearts of its victims. Such a person is also unfit for heaven. We must be divested of all bad desires at some point before we get into the Celestial Kingdom; why not start now?
Much is said in the Church with regard to the law of chastity, and the attendant constellation of prohibitions, and sins of thought, emotion, desire, and action. The WHAT is drilled firmly into the minds of young men. The main deficiency I see in all this training is a lack of explanation about HOW. In 3Ne. 12, Jesus Himself identifies avoiding lust in one's heart as taking up one's cross. He probably did not use that metaphor lightly or accidentally. The enormity of the task is implied in the metaphor. It is one thing to say what needs to be done; it is a deeper task to explain how to do it.
Avoiding exposure is often mistakenly presented as a solution. Pornography is so widely available that exposure is probably inevitable. It is not so much a question of if, but when. Silence is not a solution either. This is like saying the dirt doesn't exist once it is swept under the carpet. Sin thrives in the dark, like fungus, and light tends to destroy it. Instilling shame and guilt in young men only reinforces concealment. Pornography should not be a young man's introduction into the subject of sex. He should ideally be introduced to the topic in the context of the plan of happiness, the context of reproduction and family.
[11 Jan. 2013 Update: Marriage is also not a solution. One dear friend of mine, a young woman, thought that the intensity of her passion for the young man she was marrying would curtail his appetite for pornographic images. Would she have made the same mistake if her fiance had been a drug addict? (They are now divorced.) Pornography addiction is different from sex in that it eliminates the insecurities and complexities of human relationships, i.e. rejection, criticism, physical illness, trust, misinterpretation of cues, petty bickering, expectations, etc. It is a fantasy world in which the addict can do no wrong, purely a spectator sport; it is not a sign of deprived sexual appetite, any more than drug abuse is, and actual sex performs different emotional functions than pornography consumption, which more closely parallels drug abuse. Real sex requires courage, a chief component of love; pornography shields the addict from the real or imagined pain of relationships and every other species of stress life throws at the addict, the very "fear" that "hath torment" (1 John 4:18). Marriage is an emotional adventure, full of perils; pornography addiction is an evasion of emotional entanglement and genuine intimacy.]
Who Will Jump?
Imagine being confronted with pornography as coming to the edge of a cliff and being tempted to jump despite painful consequences. Why do some jump while others step back? Curiosity and peer pressure may impel some. The scriptures teach us to have our "loins (reproductive equipment) girt about with truth," not ignorance. But if children have been taught to avoid pornography, there must be a deeper explanation as to why some cave to temptation while others walk away.
"Deep unmet needs" is a phrase one psychologist used to describe the motivation that originally drives addictive behavior. I say "originally" because the addiction takes on a life of its own, and becomes a need unto itself, as well as spackle to substitute for deficiencies in one's emotional needs. In other words, having emotional needs met will prevent participation in pornography most of the time. But who has all their needs met all the time? Precious few, it seems. Not everyone is popular, loved, etc. Not everyone has a driving passion or constructive hobby to fill their days with purpose and meaning. Not everyone has a sense of peace, security, control, connectedness, or joy in life. Sorrow, emptiness, frustration and anger, bottled up emotions, stress, and insecurities nip at all our heels one way or another. Salvation is not ultimately through basketball championships or getting attention from that special someone; it is through Jesus Christ, through His Atonement.
Hiding in a monastery, being so busy that there is no time for sin, pretending there is no problem, medication, internet filters, snapping your wrist with a rubber band, repeating the negative consequences of sin over and over, flogging self or others with accusation and guilt, seeking happiness and fulfillment, will all ultimately leave the problem unsolved. Behavior is only a manifestation of the problem, and working from the outside to amend behavior is not the same thing as solving the real problem that lies within.
Alma came out of his coma with this to say on the subject: "And the Lord said unto me: Marvel not that all mankind, yea, men and women, all nations, kindreds, tongues and people, must be born again; yea, born of God, changed from their carnal and fallen state, to a state of righteousness, being redeemed of God, becoming his sons and daughters; And thus they become new creatures; and unless they do this, they can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God" (Mosiah 27:25-26). This spiritual rebirth is the actual solution to the problem of pornography. It is a cure, whereas other tactics, like making sure emotional needs are met, internet filters, willpower, medication, and other human contrivances, are treatments. It is also the right and best form of prevention. Peter did not strap on water skis when he jumped out of the boat to walk on the water, yet we do this in a figurative sense when we try to find a solution to the problem of pornography in our own earthly bag of tricks. "Having no more disposition to do evil, but to do good continually" (Mosiah 5:2). This describes a solution to the real problem of pornography, the condition of the heart. Even if we could apply unlimited willpower and resist, resist, resist temptations until we die, we would still be unfit for heaven because of internal problems, unrighteous desires that need resisting. And even if we could destroy all pornographic material on earth, it would still exist in the minds and hearts of its victims. Such a person is also unfit for heaven. We must be divested of all bad desires at some point before we get into the Celestial Kingdom; why not start now?
What Would I Say?
If I were teaching my own son about how to keep the law of chastity effectively, I would try to convey some of the following ideas (preferably, this would happen before he turned 7 or 8 years old, before the real weight of the cross described above came slamming onto his shoulders):
A temple, according to John A. Widtsoe, is something God puts us in, or through, in order to strengthen us, literally to "endow us with power from on high." Our bodies meet this qualification. Our spirits, when placed in bodies, gain new abilities and powers not previously enjoyed. Among those powers is the power to procreate, and since this requires two people, a man and a woman, this power is accompanied by the ability to fall in love, the capacity for romantic infatuation. Men, at least initially, are attracted visually. As with all powers, there is proper use and destructive abuse of this particular ability.
The proper use of this power is to weld a man and woman together emotionally in marriage, so that their love will result in children, and their continued love will make those children feel secure and develop greater capacity for appropriate kindness, trust, and love towards everyone they encounter later in life.
Pornography takes this capacity for falling, and staying, in love with a spouse, and twists it into lust. Lust has no permanence, and sees people as disposable objects. It switches from one person to the next, rather than finding one person and sticking with that one. This tendency is natural, and one of the reasons marriages are performed at altars. Part of a man's nature is designed for loyalty and fidelity to spouse and children, while another part may retain the capacity to be attracted to other women; restraining that latter, irrational impulse is encompassed by the statement "bridle all your passions" (Alma 38:12). At the altar, we sacrifice the option of wandering from person to person, dating and looking for new partners, and exclude all others except the one to whom we are sealed. Because it is difficult to do, it is a sacrifice, and part of that cross Jesus talks about in 3Ne. 12.
The law of chastity is to have no sexual relations except with your spouse. This extends to the heart and mind. The rule, then, is to "suffer none of these thing to enter into your heart." Temptations are going to be presented to you, regardless of how cautious you are. (This is no reason to not be cautious.) But because it is a commandment, it follows that there must be a way to keep our hearts free from sexual desire for someone we are not married to (see 1Ne. 3:7).
Seek for the mighty change of heart described in the scriptures. When you have it, pornography will cease to appeal to you. Sorrow and disgust for it will replace fascination and excitement. This is not an easy state to reach; it requires divine intervention, Jesus changing your heart. It is not a product of willpower or practice. It requires faith in Christ, deep humility, obedience to the promptings of the Spirit, doing things that invite the Spirit, and avoiding things that offend the Spirit. This includes avoid things that are not even related to pornography, yet are offensive to the Spirit, such as violence presented as entertainment, raucous music, irreverent jokes, breaking the Sabbath, and other things. When you give your whole self, and everything you have to Jesus, then He will change your heart. You give Him your bad heart, and he gives you His heart, His nature, in return. Agency is immutable; He will not overstep it. That is why we must have faith and be humble, and submit our whole soul to receive this mighty change. Ordinances are also crucial; they are the way in which we formalize our commitment, faith, humility, and willingness to do what Jesus asks us to do.
The Book of Mormon also fits Elder Widtsoe's definition of a Temple. When we enter it, we are strengthened. Joseph Smith taught that we will get nearer to God by abiding by its precepts than any other book (not just by reading it). Part of the reason for that is its clear and powerful teachings about spiritual rebirth, the mighty change of heart. If you will make a diligent search of the Book of Mormon and identify everything you need to do in order to secure this change of heart, this endowment of power from on high, for yourself, you will find strength to resist temptations, and eventually, freedom from temptations that used to "easily beset" you. You will find added power to do your duty and live a good LDS life. I have never gotten to a point in my life when I felt that I had outgrown the scriptures. Instead of qualifying me to move on to other things, each increase in understanding has merely shown me how much more there is for me to derive from the scriptures. Get a testimony of them, study them daily, and the Spirit will change your heart, and protect you from evil. It will not only lead you away from evil, it will also guide you to do, and become, good.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Where Your Treasure Is...
Documentaries are like candy to me. I am a truth-a-holic, and information about the real world is what I crave. Several documentaries I have checked out from the library this last month have transformed from a jumble of trivia and facts, and coalesced in my mind into a semi-coherent theme.
One documentary was about house flies. There are more flies born every day than there are humans on the earth. They are parasites, living on the refuse and food of humans and their herd animals. They taste with their feet, and have a mouth located on the end of a straw, called a proboscis. They greedily slurp up any liquid they can get their saliva on. They spread disease by regurgitating what they have eaten, now laden with contagion, sometimes spilling a bit on human food as they suck the vomit back into their bodies. Flies followed human migrations across the earth, and were brought to England by Roman legions. From there, they spread to the Americas and Australia.
Another documentary was about the art and science of design. Originally, the process of design occurred almost at the same time as manufacture. A designer would make one item, a pot or whatever, and it would be based on a standardized template, yet have unique characteristics as well. The industrial revolution happened in England, and as technology advanced, art and uniqueness were lost somewhat to mass production. Giant textile mills churned out square miles of machine-made fabric. The American model was assembly line production, literally called "unskilled" because each worker on the line only knew one part of the item he helped produce. This soul-free, artless, mechanical way of creating things spread globally. "Luxury" now often means simply "unique" or "hand-made." This displeased some designers in recent decades, who sought to combine a unique appearance with the ease and affordability of mass production. This has worked in some cases, but it is detrimental in others. Trying to turn a car into a canvas means that instead of paying a little money to replace an ugly black rubber bumper after it is damaged, I have to pay hundreds of dollars to replace a shiny piece of plastic. One car designer indicated that the car a person chooses to drive shows how the person wants to be perceived, the image they want to project, or whom they want to seem to be.
What do these documentaries have in common? The first exemplifies the first temptation of Christ found in Matt. 4—the flesh. Satan tempted Him to turn rocks into bread. Appetites compete with God for our prime affections, and we must keep them inside the boundaries He sets for our protection. The second documentary corresponds nicely to the second temptation—popularity. Jumping from a pinnacle of the Temple was what Satan tempted Jesus to do, and floating easily to the ground would have impressed onlookers. Obsession with appearances and shallow externalities characterizes crumbling societies, and morally bankrupt individuals. "We heeded them not," Nephi says of those who ignored the well-dressed inhabitants of the great and spacious building who mocked them.
Nephi says that those who seek four things will be destroyed: wealth, power, popularity, and the pleasures of the flesh (1Ne. 22:23). (These pursuits tend toward self-destruction, though the scripture says God will destroy them.)
The final temptation of Christ was two-pronged, the twin temptations of wealth and power. They are co-morbid, and hardly show up without each other. Wealth creates power, and power allows for the theft of wealth. These are, perhaps, the most destructive temptations.
It just so happens that I watched two other documentaries cataloging such destruction. The first was a history of man's obsession with gold. Suddenly, the motivation behind bits and pieces of violence scattered throughout history snapped into focus. It was one horrendous and sad tale after another. Wars figured prominently. Spanish conquistadors saw gold ornaments dangling from American natives, and lusted after them. (Only in recent years have I paid attention to the Book of Mormon's preface to Columbus' arrival in the promised land: "Behold, the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy brethen" (1Ne. 13:11).) They stole the gold and silver, killed and enslaved the natives, and started shipping the gold back to Spain. Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake became lauded brigands, plundering Spanish treasure galleons on the high seas and returning the gold to England. (One such vessel, the Atocha, yielded half a billion dollars worth of gold and silver to one treasure seeker who lost twenty years of his life and one beloved family member searching for it off the Florida Keys.) Phillip II of Spain sought to bring petulant, protestant England to bow the knee before the Catholic Church, and began to build an armada to that end. Drake burned the fledgling armada in the harbor, and Phillip, inflamed with the hubris often engendered by unlimited wealth, simply rebuilt the armada. Weather destroyed the new armada as it was about to invade English soil. Spain declined, and the infusion of gold from the Americas was like the first domino in a chain of economic events that spurred the growth of the British Empire. Lamanite gold is one reason English is the most popular second language on earth.
The other documentary was about the ascent of money, which is a symbolic representation of gold supposedly stored in vaults somewhere (this is referred to as a "shell game"). This documentary was also a laundry list of sordid and horrific deeds conducted in the name of power for weath's sake. The French crusaders came begging gold from the Venetian bankers to finance their re-conquering of Jerusalem, and the head banker, a blind man in his eighties, agreed to lend them the money on condition that they would take their military and sack a competing business port in the Mediterranean, Constantinople. The Venetians hated the competition Constantinople presented, and knew where all their best treasures were stored. Instead of crusading to the Holy Land, the French took a detour and looted the Byzantine Empire of its collected relics and treasures. These were brought back to Italy, and even today, a solid gold jewel-encrusted altar graces the Cathedral of St. Mark. (I doubt that Mark would have approved).
Another theme runs through these documentaries—transportation of treasures, the distribution and concentration of various valuables. Greed and lust demand that one dragon sits on all the treasure, jealously guarding it. But how did it get in the cave in the first place?
Unbelievably, I have watched two other documentaries about that very subject. The first was so dull that even I could not watch more than an hour of it. It was a presentation of the history of the Vatican Library, its construction, and how it came to be stocked with great architecture, works of art, and treasures of minerals, gold, silver, semi-precious stones, and even solid gold sculptures. Kings and rulers from around Europe donated items rare and impressive to be housed in the archives of the Vatican. It was a dull documentary, though, because the information about what was being shown was stilted and sparse. The narrator kept referring to the sovereignty of the Written Word, its importance in spreading salvation, yet he said nothing about it. It was as though the creators of the video assumed that the audience already had enough information on that topic, and that they would prefer to move on to other matters, more interesting or diverting. It was like going to the most interesting repository of information on earth without a guide to elaborate on what I was seeing, to elucidate the meaning of the symbols. It was like arriving at an oasis without a straw or cup.
The final documentary was about the Joseph Smith Papers project. Rather than a cave filled with gold, the treasures that experts in the film are concerned with are mere pieces of paper, and the hand-written scrawl of smudged letters on them, or more specifically, the information they impart. They guard and protect these manuscripts as jealously as the dragon sitting on his bed of gold, yet they are trying to distribute and disseminate copies of them to the entire world. I have journals and school assignments tucked away in boxes, and I sometimes imagine in more delusional moments, scholars or descendants dusting them off to try and figure me out. This is exactly what they are trying to do with one man—Joseph Smith. Why are they trying to learn from a semi-literate farmer from the backwoods of 1800s New York? Not because of wealth, that is for certain. The lusts of the flesh? Ridiculous. It's just a pile of old papers. (One researcher mentioned that some scholars on the project have said they would do their work for free.) Popularity? Ridiculous. Joseph Smith is known for good AND evil, and who wants to have their serious scholarship tainted with claims of gold bibles and angelic visions? For power, then? So far the main power they are seeking in the videos is to dispel myths, misunderstandings, and vicious attacks on the character of Joseph Smith.
Why, then, are they obsessed and giddy about the chance to concentrate this prized treasure and distribute it abroad in the world? Faith seems to be the driving force. Not just concern about reputation, but concern for sharing knowledge with the world, proving the validity of claims made by Joseph, and broadening our view of who he was, what he taught, and what he did.
This treasure can be broadcast, disseminated to the whole world, for almost nothing. And it can cross more than continents and oceans. These "hidden treasures" of "great...knowledge" can cross over to the other side of the veil after we die. Information is that portable. And eternal truths are not trivial—they can actually have a significant bearing on our happiness in the next life, as well as this life. "Seek not after riches nor the vain things of this world; for behold, you cannot carry them with you," Alma tells his son (Alma 39:14). We should seek after more portable treasures.
One documentary was about house flies. There are more flies born every day than there are humans on the earth. They are parasites, living on the refuse and food of humans and their herd animals. They taste with their feet, and have a mouth located on the end of a straw, called a proboscis. They greedily slurp up any liquid they can get their saliva on. They spread disease by regurgitating what they have eaten, now laden with contagion, sometimes spilling a bit on human food as they suck the vomit back into their bodies. Flies followed human migrations across the earth, and were brought to England by Roman legions. From there, they spread to the Americas and Australia.
Another documentary was about the art and science of design. Originally, the process of design occurred almost at the same time as manufacture. A designer would make one item, a pot or whatever, and it would be based on a standardized template, yet have unique characteristics as well. The industrial revolution happened in England, and as technology advanced, art and uniqueness were lost somewhat to mass production. Giant textile mills churned out square miles of machine-made fabric. The American model was assembly line production, literally called "unskilled" because each worker on the line only knew one part of the item he helped produce. This soul-free, artless, mechanical way of creating things spread globally. "Luxury" now often means simply "unique" or "hand-made." This displeased some designers in recent decades, who sought to combine a unique appearance with the ease and affordability of mass production. This has worked in some cases, but it is detrimental in others. Trying to turn a car into a canvas means that instead of paying a little money to replace an ugly black rubber bumper after it is damaged, I have to pay hundreds of dollars to replace a shiny piece of plastic. One car designer indicated that the car a person chooses to drive shows how the person wants to be perceived, the image they want to project, or whom they want to seem to be.
What do these documentaries have in common? The first exemplifies the first temptation of Christ found in Matt. 4—the flesh. Satan tempted Him to turn rocks into bread. Appetites compete with God for our prime affections, and we must keep them inside the boundaries He sets for our protection. The second documentary corresponds nicely to the second temptation—popularity. Jumping from a pinnacle of the Temple was what Satan tempted Jesus to do, and floating easily to the ground would have impressed onlookers. Obsession with appearances and shallow externalities characterizes crumbling societies, and morally bankrupt individuals. "We heeded them not," Nephi says of those who ignored the well-dressed inhabitants of the great and spacious building who mocked them.
Nephi says that those who seek four things will be destroyed: wealth, power, popularity, and the pleasures of the flesh (1Ne. 22:23). (These pursuits tend toward self-destruction, though the scripture says God will destroy them.)
The final temptation of Christ was two-pronged, the twin temptations of wealth and power. They are co-morbid, and hardly show up without each other. Wealth creates power, and power allows for the theft of wealth. These are, perhaps, the most destructive temptations.
It just so happens that I watched two other documentaries cataloging such destruction. The first was a history of man's obsession with gold. Suddenly, the motivation behind bits and pieces of violence scattered throughout history snapped into focus. It was one horrendous and sad tale after another. Wars figured prominently. Spanish conquistadors saw gold ornaments dangling from American natives, and lusted after them. (Only in recent years have I paid attention to the Book of Mormon's preface to Columbus' arrival in the promised land: "Behold, the wrath of God is upon the seed of thy brethen" (1Ne. 13:11).) They stole the gold and silver, killed and enslaved the natives, and started shipping the gold back to Spain. Sir Walter Raleigh and Sir Francis Drake became lauded brigands, plundering Spanish treasure galleons on the high seas and returning the gold to England. (One such vessel, the Atocha, yielded half a billion dollars worth of gold and silver to one treasure seeker who lost twenty years of his life and one beloved family member searching for it off the Florida Keys.) Phillip II of Spain sought to bring petulant, protestant England to bow the knee before the Catholic Church, and began to build an armada to that end. Drake burned the fledgling armada in the harbor, and Phillip, inflamed with the hubris often engendered by unlimited wealth, simply rebuilt the armada. Weather destroyed the new armada as it was about to invade English soil. Spain declined, and the infusion of gold from the Americas was like the first domino in a chain of economic events that spurred the growth of the British Empire. Lamanite gold is one reason English is the most popular second language on earth.
The other documentary was about the ascent of money, which is a symbolic representation of gold supposedly stored in vaults somewhere (this is referred to as a "shell game"). This documentary was also a laundry list of sordid and horrific deeds conducted in the name of power for weath's sake. The French crusaders came begging gold from the Venetian bankers to finance their re-conquering of Jerusalem, and the head banker, a blind man in his eighties, agreed to lend them the money on condition that they would take their military and sack a competing business port in the Mediterranean, Constantinople. The Venetians hated the competition Constantinople presented, and knew where all their best treasures were stored. Instead of crusading to the Holy Land, the French took a detour and looted the Byzantine Empire of its collected relics and treasures. These were brought back to Italy, and even today, a solid gold jewel-encrusted altar graces the Cathedral of St. Mark. (I doubt that Mark would have approved).
Another theme runs through these documentaries—transportation of treasures, the distribution and concentration of various valuables. Greed and lust demand that one dragon sits on all the treasure, jealously guarding it. But how did it get in the cave in the first place?
Unbelievably, I have watched two other documentaries about that very subject. The first was so dull that even I could not watch more than an hour of it. It was a presentation of the history of the Vatican Library, its construction, and how it came to be stocked with great architecture, works of art, and treasures of minerals, gold, silver, semi-precious stones, and even solid gold sculptures. Kings and rulers from around Europe donated items rare and impressive to be housed in the archives of the Vatican. It was a dull documentary, though, because the information about what was being shown was stilted and sparse. The narrator kept referring to the sovereignty of the Written Word, its importance in spreading salvation, yet he said nothing about it. It was as though the creators of the video assumed that the audience already had enough information on that topic, and that they would prefer to move on to other matters, more interesting or diverting. It was like going to the most interesting repository of information on earth without a guide to elaborate on what I was seeing, to elucidate the meaning of the symbols. It was like arriving at an oasis without a straw or cup.
The final documentary was about the Joseph Smith Papers project. Rather than a cave filled with gold, the treasures that experts in the film are concerned with are mere pieces of paper, and the hand-written scrawl of smudged letters on them, or more specifically, the information they impart. They guard and protect these manuscripts as jealously as the dragon sitting on his bed of gold, yet they are trying to distribute and disseminate copies of them to the entire world. I have journals and school assignments tucked away in boxes, and I sometimes imagine in more delusional moments, scholars or descendants dusting them off to try and figure me out. This is exactly what they are trying to do with one man—Joseph Smith. Why are they trying to learn from a semi-literate farmer from the backwoods of 1800s New York? Not because of wealth, that is for certain. The lusts of the flesh? Ridiculous. It's just a pile of old papers. (One researcher mentioned that some scholars on the project have said they would do their work for free.) Popularity? Ridiculous. Joseph Smith is known for good AND evil, and who wants to have their serious scholarship tainted with claims of gold bibles and angelic visions? For power, then? So far the main power they are seeking in the videos is to dispel myths, misunderstandings, and vicious attacks on the character of Joseph Smith.
Why, then, are they obsessed and giddy about the chance to concentrate this prized treasure and distribute it abroad in the world? Faith seems to be the driving force. Not just concern about reputation, but concern for sharing knowledge with the world, proving the validity of claims made by Joseph, and broadening our view of who he was, what he taught, and what he did.
This treasure can be broadcast, disseminated to the whole world, for almost nothing. And it can cross more than continents and oceans. These "hidden treasures" of "great...knowledge" can cross over to the other side of the veil after we die. Information is that portable. And eternal truths are not trivial—they can actually have a significant bearing on our happiness in the next life, as well as this life. "Seek not after riches nor the vain things of this world; for behold, you cannot carry them with you," Alma tells his son (Alma 39:14). We should seek after more portable treasures.
Thursday, January 5, 2012
Lead Kindly Light
Are there really such things as accidents? Especially, are there significant ones?
I watched a video that attempted to explain different dimensions beyond the third dimension. It said the fourth dimension is time. To a being who could see all time at once, we would not appear as we see ourselves; rather, we would appear to be one long snakelike blob, like a dough-boy, extending from a baby-shaped end of the blob to an old, decrepit person end of the blob, with all the stages of growth and development in between. What you see as your trip to school and back would just make you look like a long slinky or extension cord stretched out from your home, to school, and back again. A car accident might make the decrepit end of the blob even more decrepit and hunched over; good health would mean a much longer blob, with a less decrepit looking old end.
It struck me that, if you put that long dough-boy representing the entire life of a person on a wheel (since change in time happens in cycles, circles, orbits, revolutions, rotations, sine waves, oscillations, pulses, etc.), you could imagine various external forces shaping the development of that long blob, the way fingers wet with slip can massage a lump of clay on a potter's wheel into a cup or a vase. I mentioned a car accident changing the physical shape of a person; what about other accidents that change the internal makeup or structure of the same person?
Obviously, the Lord is the Potter throwing the clay in this metaphorical scenario. 911 is the phone number we dial in emergencies, when accidents happen; in Eccl. 9:11 we read, "I returned, and saw under the sun, that the race is not to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, neither yet bread to the wise, nor yet riches to men of understanding, nor yet favour to men of skill; but time and chance happeneth to them all." This suggests that one person may do everything right, and have one tiny misfortune lead to ruin, while another person may be doing the wrong thing, or minding his own business, and suddenly find himself in possession of his heart's desire. "...time and chance," forces of nature and objects jostling about bump into each other, and the outcome is random.
Let me go back to that image of a four dimensional person as a long rope of clay. It occurs to me that the Lord can not only subject us to various forces to shape and tutor us. He can also weave our paths so that we crisscross, mingling and colliding with each other to accomplish His ultimate purposes. Jesus described people who are born again as being led by the Spirit, like the blowing wind, to show up at certain places and times. John 3:8, "The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is born of the Spirit." Below is a segment of an article by Catherine M. Thomas, "Alma the Younger, Part 1":
"Joseph Smith wrote, 'At the first organization in heaven we were all present, and saw the Savior chosen and appointed and the plan of salvation made, and we sanctioned it.' What was this first organization? Brigham Young quoted Joseph Smith: 'Be sure to tell the people to keep the spirit of the Lord; and if they will, they will find themselves just as they were organized by our Father in Heaven before they came into the world. Our Father in Heaven organized the human family, but they are all disorganized and in great confusion.' Brigham continued: 'Joseph then showed me the pattern, how they were in the beginning. This I cannot describe, but I saw it, and saw where the Priesthood had been taken from the earth and how it must be joined together, so that there would be a perfect chain from Father Adam to his latest posterity.'"
Imagine all these billions of people, the course of each life, woven together by the Lord. It is easy to guess at why such a structure or organization might be difficult or impossible for a three-dimensional Brigham Young to describe. Repentance might be defined as trying to get one's life in harmony, or on the path, that Heavenly Father intended for that one person to be on in the first place. At best, I can imagine a family tree, gnarled and intertwining from roots to branches; this might be only part of what Brigham Young saw—maybe the rest was people being in the right place at the right time, to have the expected effect upon each other and fulfill their preordained missions in mortality.
All of this happened premortally, in a giant pre-planned layout of humanity; hence my question about genuine accidents. Elder Maxwell noted: "At Christmastime, for instance, we celebrate a special star that announced Jesus' birth at Bethlehem. Thus, the...'little star of Bethlehem' was actually very large in its declaration of divine design! It had to have been placed in its precise orbit long, long before it shone so precisely! Persuasive divine design is underscored in what the Lord has said: 'All things must come to pass in their time' (D&C 64:32). His overseeing precision pertains not only to astrophysical orbits but to human orbits as well. This is such a stunning thing for us to contemplate as to our obligations to 'shine as lights' within our own orbits and personal responsibilities!"
I learned the basic rudiments of crocheting from my paternal grandmother. I could manage to make a rope, and get it to double back on itself. I think I made a somewhat useful pot holder at some point. (Yarn does not respond well to high temperatures; my pot holder got a tan, and ended up in a landfill somewhere, if memory serves.) My grandma, on the other hand, excelled at the craft, and crocheted altar cloths for the Temple. My mother framed one as a wall hanging. I kept the crocheting needle she gave me as a keepsake after she died, stored with my coin collection.
We are not just guided by the Spirit; when we heed its promptings, we are woven together into communities by it. That idea has echoed louder and louder in my head in previous months. Some people claim they get a more fulfilling religious experience fishing or hunting in the wilderness than by attending church on Sunday; others express limitless contempt toward "organized religion." My response to them all is simple: heaven is described to us as "an innumerable company of angels" (Heb. 12:22). I believe one purpose of organized religion, groups and churches, is to prepare us to be part of that innumerable crowd. If we cannot get along with each other here and now, are we fit to be a part of heaven? John suggests not: "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?" (1 John 4:20). It is easy to have a good relationship with the Lord, because one of the people in the relationship is perfect. Perfect plus imperfect equals perfect. But what does it mean to be like the Lord? It means, in part, to have the same forgiving, loving, patient attitude towards imperfect people that He does, that He shows to us.
God is not an interstellar hermit. In 1Ne. 1:8, Lehi was "...overcome with the Spirit, he was carried away in a vision, even that he saw the heavens open, and he thought he saw God sitting upon his throne, surrounded with numberless concourses of angels in the attitude of singing and praising their God." He is referred to as "the Lord of Hosts." We read about a great council in the beginning before the creation, and a resulting war in heaven. "...they without us cannot be made perfect—neither can we without our dead be made perfect" (D&C 128:15). "In God’s eternal plan, salvation is an individual matter; exaltation is a family matter" (Elder Nelson, Salvation and Exaltation, April 2008 General Conference).
If we discover God alone (like Abraham did when he cried for help as his family volunteered him for sacrifice), and we stay with God long enough, eventually we will find ourselves as part of a group, a family, even presiding over a family (like Abraham, whose name means "Great Father"). There is no substitute for a private relationship with God, yet God equates our treatment of each other with our treatment of Him. "Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matt. 25:40, 45). In societies that actually succeed in becoming Zion, or at least being worthy of the term, we read the culturally unacceptable final step they took to achieve the title: "They had all things in common." (Acts 2:44, 4Ne. 1:3). The rule is implied here: "there was no poor among them" (Moses 7:18).
I guess there may be accidents, even significant ones, but I also assume that the Lord has made ample provisions in His web of interconnection for every significant, and even insignificant event. Elder Bednar's landmark talk, The Tender Mercies of the Lord, (April 2005 General Conference) about "tender mercies," those seeming coincidences that let us know the Lord is mindful of us, lays out the idea in detail for examination. Even in the minute details and what seems to be random, the Lord is silently organizing and influencing for good, pressing like a potter on clay.
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