More Often than We Admit, "They" Aren't the Problem: "We" Are

It's always easier to blame someone else for problems than to face the fact that they aren't someone else's fault.

Marriage is falling apart? Blame the gays.

Morality seems to be declining? Blame the infidels.

Job productivity is decreasing? Blame Facebook.

Promiscuity is rising? Blame the media. 



I don't see it that way. 

If those things are happening (and I"m not convinced they are happening, since, as a history teacher, I am well aware of how weak marriage and morality and job productivity have been and how rampant promiscuity has been for thousands of years), they are happening because "WE" are dropping the ball - not because "THEY" are corrupting our wonderful society.

I believe we should try to fix our own house before complaining about the conditions of other houses. If America is being killed, the current descendants of immigrants who came here earlier are doing the killing - not the immigrants who come here now.

If marriage is failing, it's heterosexuals who are causing the failure - not homosexuals.

If morality is failing, it's Christians who are causing the failure - not Muslims and atheists.

If promiscuity is rising, it's the religious who are fueling that rise - not the non-religious.

etc., etc., etc.

If this country (and others) fall, it will be "we" who make it happen, not "them".

Accountability and charity are powerful principles, and we cut the heart out of both of them when we insist on blaming others for our own problems. 

Why Mortal Suffering?: or, We Are Meant to Be the Gods of This Earth

Adam and Eve were told they would be "Lord of all the earth" - and "Adam" and "Eve" are generic terms for "man" and "mother".  Thus . . .

I believe we have been given the power and authority to "be God" on this earth - that our decisions and actions (our allegiances - whom we follow and emulate) determine who is the God of this earth.

So, why does God allow terrible suffering and abuse?

Maybe it's because we aren't willing yet to step up and assume our intended roles - and we allow it to continue and be so pervasive. We like to blame God, but we aren't willing to see ourselves as the God we are blaming. In my own sphere of influence, I am that I am - but it's easier to shift the blame to the great I AM and not tackle what goes on around us in our own kingdom of embryonic gods.

Yes, there must needs be opposition in all things, so suffering is inevitable.  How we deal with it, however, is up to us.  If we know someone is being abused and do nothing to stop it . . . if we know people are starving and do nothing to feed them (or simply over-consume and keep resources from them) . . . if we know women and children are being forced into prostitution and sit back without trying to stop it . . . if we know of evil and don't fight it . . .

We can believe that such things are a result of the Fall and part of the Plan, so, in a way, we can say God is responsible for their existence - but WE, collectively, are responsible for the degree to which these things flourish, and we have examples of peoples who banded together and simply refused to allow them to continue within the spheres of their own influence.  They stepped up and represented God, in a very real way - and they changed the world around them.

A Different Definition of Being Less Envious

As I was preparing to write my New Year's Resolution post for this week, I felt prompted to review what I had written last year while I was focused on the idea that "charity envieth not".  I will post my thoughts this week as part of my resolution post next weekend, but tonight I want to re-post my introductory thoughts from last February.  I needed the reminder at the end of this week, and I hope someone else benefits from that post, as well:
--------------------------------------
Last month, my New Year's Resolution focus was on the first manifestation of charity - that of suffering long in kindness. This month, my focus is on charity's second characteristic - that of "envying not". As I tend to do, I want to look first at what this phrase ("envieth not") means - followed throughout the month by why it is important, how it is internalized and how it flows from suffering long in kindness.

Envy often is looked upon as covetousness - and, in fact, in some modern dictionary usages the verb "envy" is listed as a synonym of the verb "covet". However, in its original meaning "envy" carries a much more fundamental connotation. From dictionary.com:

c.1280, from O.Fr. envie, from L. invidia "envy, jealousy," from invidus "envious," from invidere "envy," earlier "look at (with malice), cast an evil eye upon"

Thus, charity does not look at others with malice or in an evil manner. "Malice" is defined as:

desire to inflict injury, harm, or suffering on another, either because of a hostile impulse or out of deep-seated meanness

[NOTE: A reader last February sent me a link to the 1828 Webster's Revised Dictionary definition of "envy". It carries a slightly more modern interpretation of the word, and I really like it as an extension of this post for modern times.]

"To feel uneasiness, mortification or discontent, at the sight of superior excellence, reputation or happiness enjoyed by another; to repine at another''s prosperity; to fret or grieve one's self at the real or supposed superiority of another, and to hate him on that account."

This aspect of charity (like long-suffering and kindness) is a foundational one, since it defines the very eyes with which someone sees others. In a very real way, someone is able to look upon others without malice and evil specifically because of one's long-suffering and kindness - recognizing that all the myriad types of pain and suffering experienced in this life come from living this life, not strictly from the people who surround us in this life. Thus, someone who possesses true charity is able to look past the instrument of suffering - kindly seeing the inevitability of suffering and not allowing herself to get caught up in a maliciously evil mindset that would eliminate kindness in her actions and reactions.

Notice that this phrase ("envieth not"), as defined in this manner, does not carry the connotations of possession that generally accompany its use in modern times. In other words, there is no delineation of wanting what another has in this phrasing. That is covetousness - and envying, in this usage, can rear its head no matter of socio-economic status. One can look upon another with malice and an evil eye even if that other person is almost exactly like one's self. Malice is the desire to hurt someone else, and envying not carries a connotation of being totally unconcerned about differences of any kind - of not being upset and angry in a way that causes someone to desire to cause another to suffer.

This ties directly to my point in one of the resolutions posts last month that someone who truly has learned to suffer long in kindness will not attempt to transfer his own suffering needlessly onto another. Developing that type of kindness for those with whom we are close is relatively easy compared to what "envying not" entails - extending that type of kindness to others, even those who cause the suffering we feel.

My final point this weekend is that "envying not" deals most purely with our outlook - our perspective - our vision - our thoughts concerning others. Our actions are secondary to this aspect of charity; they merely are the manifestation of whether or not we envy (look at other with malice and and evil eye). Certainly, the most obvious proof that we "envy not" is found in how we TREAT others - but it is found most fundamentally in the subtleties of how we SEE others (which is exhibited outwardly, I believe, most purely in how we SPEAK of others). Many people would never dream of harming others and causing them to suffer in direct, tangible ways - but many of these same people do not hesitate to speak maliciously of others and wish evil upon them.
-----------------------------------------
Thus, if I am to "be less envious" this month, I must decrease not only my actions that cause direct and obvious harm to others, but I also must decrease my words that wish harm on others - and decrease the "evil" thoughts that cause those words. "Being less envious" fundamentally is about changing the way I SEE and FEEL ABOUT people.

Why I Don't Support "Hate Crimes" Legislation: Individual Worth

We live in a system that has said we can't be punished for what we think and believe, only for what we do. Hate crime legislation punishes people differently based on what they think and believe - for WHY they do what they do. It is that simple to me, so I don't support hate crime legislation.

If my wife or daughter is raped or killed, I don't want a white perpetrator to get a lighter sentence than a black man who was shouting racial slurs because my wife or daughter is a white woman. I also don't want a Baptist perpetrator shouting religious bigotry to be punished more harshly just because my wife or daughter is Mormon.

There is a MUCH deeper reason, however, that I am appalled by hate crimes legislation - and I choose the word "appalled" carefully and consciously.  

I want a lesbian, drug-addicted prostitute of any race or ethnicity to be viewed under the law exactly in the same manner as my wife or daughter - and I want someone who murders that prostitute in order to steal her money punished exactly the same as someone who murders her because she is lesbian or a different race or drug-addicted. None of those things makes her life less valuable or important, and the absence of those things doesn't makes my wife's or daughter's life more valuable or important, either. 
   

I believe they are equal in the eyes of God and should be treated as equal under the law, as well - no matter WHY the perpetrator of a crime did what he did.

(I also should note explicitly that I chose the above characterizations strictly because of the way they are viewed by many people in society.  I am NOT equating being lesbian with being a drug addict or with being a prostitute.)

Recognizing and Removing the Roots of Reviling

As I have observed the aftermath of the vote on Proposition 8, especially, I have tried to read comments from people with widely varying opinions and perspectives with an eye toward what is making them bitter and leading them to revile those with whom they disagree. The following list is not exhaustive, but it includes the things that I have noticed the most frequently. I am going to use the example of homosexuality solely since it has been the focus of the comments on the threads where reviling has been the most prominent. However, I believe the general causes of reviling cut across any single issue - so I ask only that this post not be viewed as a post about homosexuality. It is not - and all comments that focus on homosexuality in and of itself will be deleted.

The root causes of reviling I have observed are:

1) Fundamental lack of understanding

It is fascinating to see how badly many people misunderstand even some very basic things about those they oppose. Over and over, I have read statements like the following:

Mormons hate gays.

Anyone who voted for Prop. 8 is a bigot.

The most severe example was in a comment just yesterday, on a blog that generally is not one of the more extreme:

Remember, we are talking about people who literally do not want homosexuals to exist!

On the other hand, I have read things like the following from those who supported Prop. 8:

Satan is behind the opposition to Prop. 8.

All Mormons who didn't contribute to the campaign and/or voted against Prop. 8 (no matter if they said anything publicly) don't accept the prophets and should lose their temple recommends.

Gays are out to recruit my kids to be gay. It's not about them; it's about converting straight kids to become gays.

This is only a tiny sampling, but it is crystal clear to me that these people simply don't understand those that believe differently than they do. They might even know a few of these people (e.g., homosexuals on one hand and Mormons on the other), but they definitely don't understand them as a group - particularly since they tend to assume that the good people they know on the opposite side are the exception to the rule.


2) Personal prejudice

Many people grow up with a particular prejudice being taught in their youth and adolescence. This leads to biases and stereotypes about religious adherents, entire races, political partisans, men and women, socio-economic status, etc. Much of what I have read shows this underlying assumption from the impressionable years of youth - and this is not confined to one side or the other. For example, many Mormons and gays have a well-developed persecution complex, often for solid reasons rooted in actual events of discrimination against each group as a whole. It is especially hard for these people to view something like Prop. 8 with anything even resembling impartiality, as their personal experiences tell them that their opponents have the worst possible motives.


3) Prior Pain

This is similar to #2, but it goes a little deeper in what I have read. Many people who are responding to the result of Prop. 8 - especially those who lost the vote (those who support gay marriage), but also Mormons who now are the object of protests and scorn - have been hurt previously in very real ways by their status as Mormon and/or homosexual. They have experienced true and virulent homophobia and hate. Those prior experiences, like the teachings of their youth, make it very difficult to distinguish the nuances inherent in differing perspectives - and make it much easier to ascribe hidden motives and unexpressed loathing to people who really do bear no ill will personally to those with whom they disagree. These people, particularly, have an excruciatingly difficult time accepting that those who disagree with them still can love them. Their experience teaches otherwise, and experience trumps all else in most situations.


4) Impaired Perspective

Of all the reasons I have seen for the reviling and vitriol I have read, I believe this one is the most fundamental - and the only one that when corrected can lead to the eradication of #1 and the overcoming of #2 and #3. I truly believe that the recognition of every single person as a child of God and, therefore, a brother or sister with identical eternal potential is the only achievement that has the power to eliminate reviling completely and irrevocably. This goes beyond just believing that all are equal in God's eyes - although that is a great place to start. This includes believing ALL can rise above their natural, human weakness - in Christian terms, believing that the Atonement of Jesus Christ is capable of overlooking ANY inadequacy or flaw by focusing solely on the condition of the heart - believing that God sees with unimpaired perspective. Ultimately, it includes a belief that the object of existence is to develop the characteristics of godliness articulated in the Sermon on the Mount and other scriptures and become Christlike, since becoming a new (wo)man in Christ provides the perspective necessary to see divine potential in all others.

Matthew 7:1 is compelling in its simplicity:

Judge not, that ye be not judged.

1 Corinthians 13 speaks of this type of charity and forbearance, with verse 12 being an especially powerful summary of the difficulty in understanding others enough to not revile them - particularly a phrase that generally is overlooked as spoken by a prophet:

For now we see through a glass, darkly . . . now I know in part

Recognizing that we don't see and understand fully - and developing the humility and charity necessary to cut others some slack, not judge them and accept what they say as honest and sincere (even while disagreeing ) - is critical to avoiding reviling. Similarly necessary is the meekness to not need to "win" every discussion - and not see everything as a battle between us and an "enemy". Sometimes - I would say often - it is fine simply to agree to disagree and move forward in love and mutual respect. In order to do so, however, we must see others as our equals in the eyes of God - and that is not an easy thing to accomplish. It does not come naturally. Rather, it must be a conscious decision and constant effort.

Regardless of the effort required, I promise it is worth it.

Proposition 8 and the Presidency: A Week of Reviling

I look at the resolution I made at the beginning of the year, and it strikes me once again how totally and thoroughly my Father in Heaven knows me.

I am focusing this month partly on not reviling those who revile me (personally or as part of a group) - and I never imagined when I made this resolution last December that many would be openly reviling me this month, simply because I am Mormon. However, that is exactly what is happening in California right now - due to the passing of Proposition 8 and the Church's encouragement of its members to work to help it pass. Gay marriage activists and gay individuals and gay marriage supporters shut down traffic in front of the Los Angeles temple for hours - threatening to climb the fences around the temple grounds and wreak havoc to the place we revere as "The House of the Lord". These people (who do not represent the typical citizens who opposed Proposition 8 any more than the vocal Mormon bigots represent the typical members who truly tried to follow the actual admonitions of the Church concerning love and respect) primarily were reviling my "conservative" opinion on one issue, with no understanding whatsoever about how I reached my opinion on this issue - or on any other issues.

The most ironic aspect of this week is that I also faced reviling from others (including some church members) due to my vote for President-Elect Obama. A few of them even questioned how I could hold a temple recommend because of my vote. I can't even begin to describe how disturbing that is to me, to have my spiritual worthiness impugned because of a political decision that is seen as too "liberal" by some members of the Church.

Due to my views on these two issues, I was reviled by others as being both too conservative and too liberal. Irony, thy name is politics.

This post is not about Proposition 8 fundamentally, or even about the issue of gay marriage - or about the Presidential election; rather, it is about the irony and awfulness of outrage and reviling.

As I said in my post last Saturday, "to revile" is ""to address or abuse with contemptuous language". As I read comments on theads about Prop 8 and the election this week, and particularly when I watched the protest (and near riot) outside the Los Angeles temple grounds something struck me - HARD.

There were some members who said some truly terrible things - who reviled homosexuals and those who supported gay marriage. They were a small minority, but they existed. That is truly and deeply disturbing to me. The Church, however, urged calmness and compassion and love and acceptance of people even while asking for opposition to what those people believed. Of course, that is a difficult distinction to make for those who don't accept the Church's basic, foundational understanding of the Law of Chastity, but the Church itself never issued hate-inspired statements.

What struck me was that the protestors at the Los Angeles temple had succumbed to the natural tendency to construct a straw man as a target for their outrage - and their reviling. (I say "straw man" intentionally, since the Mormon vote was only a minority of the vote. Perhaps it was the most visible and became the public face for many, but those who voted for the proposition came from many backgrounds and religious denominations - many.) The protesters created a monolithic Mormon caricature and directed their anger at that symbolic target - embodied in our temple. What struck me most forcefully, however, is that as a result of their inability to avoid reviling, these people were acting exactly like the caricature they had created. They were "haters" in every sense of the word - FAR more so than the people and the organization they were protesting. It took police officers deployed on the grounds to stop a riot, something that was not an issue from those they labeled "haters".

I have never understood the admonition, "Revile not," more than I have this week. When I made this resolution, I understood that reviling stands in opposition to love and the pursuit of perfection, but even last week I did not understand how completely and overwhelmingly opposed to the Plan of Salvation succumbing to reviling truly is.

I don't want to become like the protesters I saw this week. I don't want my life to be consumed by hate, especially hate that is directed largely at a caricature. I don't want to fill my heart with hatred and anger toward an entire group of people simply because I disagree with their moral and political views - no matter how repugnant I find those views. Most of all, with all my heart, I do not want to become the mirror image of the caricature I am protesting.

I do not write this post in an attitude of reviling. I write it hoping somehow that those who are now in the gall of bitterness and anger and even hate (ON BOTH SIDES) will recognize the destructiveness of that path, examine the result of continued reviling and commit to follow the Savior's admonition (no matter their moral and political beliefs) in Matthew 5:44-47 to:

Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

I have come to believe that the only way to rise above the natural tendency to revile and hate is found in the verse I quoted in my post on Wednesday (1 John 4:19):

We love him, because he first loved us.

May we first love those who revile us.