The LDS Church Also Evolves in Its Understanding and Its Recognition of Past Mistakes

"Seventy years ago this Church was organized with six members. We commenced, so to speak, as an infant. We had our prejudices to combat. Our ignorance troubled us in regard to what the Lord intended to do and what He wanted us to do … We advanced to boyhood, and still we undoubtedly made some mistakes, which … generally arise from a …lack of experience. We understand very well, when we reflect back upon our own lives, that we did many foolish things when we were boys … Yet as we advanced, the experience of the past materially assisted us to avoid such mistakes as we had made in our boyhood. It has been so with the Church. Our errors have generally arisen from a lack of comprehending what the Lord required of us to do. But now we are pretty well along to manhood … When we examine ourselves, however, we discover that we are still not doing exactly as we ought to do, notwithstanding all our experience. We discern that there are things which we fail to do that the Lord expects us to perform, some of which He requires us to do in our boyhood. … While we congratulate ourselves in this direction, we certainly ought to feel that we have not yet arrived at perfection. There are many things for us to do yet.” 

- Lorenzo Snow, General Conference, April 1900

The Danger of Living in the Past: A Principle for Personal Consideration

I was watching a TV show with one of my daughters a while ago, and the following was a line that I want to share. It has a lot of applications to faith (too many to try to list here), and it highlights one aspect of my own philosophy that is important to me:

When you live in the past, you lose the present.

It's not easy - not at all - to let go of many aspects of the past (and the bitterness that accompanies some of those aspects), since they contributed to the present in real and tangible ways - and it's not healthy to let go of the past in lots of ways, but it's really important not to live in or obsess about the past (whether that is one's own past or a communal past). All we have is the present, and the only healthy objective is to make the best on-going present possible. Living in the past is perhaps the best way to not allow that to happen - to limit in a very real way the growth that is possible by letting go of the past.

Again, this is applicable to lots of aspects of life, and I am not going to try to make a list. How it applies will vary from person to person, so, as the title says, this simply is something to consider.

The Measure of our Christian Conversion: How We Treat Others

At this time of extreme contention and lack of civility, particularly in our political and religious discourse, I find the following quote enlightening and the final paragraph important to consider:

It seems interesting that the first principles the Lord Jesus Christ chose to teach His newly called Apostles were those that center around the way we treat each other. And then, what did He emphasize during the brief period He spent with the Nephites on this continent? Basically the same message. Could this be because the way we treat each other is the foundation of the gospel of Jesus Christ?  

During an informal fireside address held with a group of adult Latter-day Saints, the leader directing the discussion invited participation by asking the question: “How can you tell if someone is converted to Jesus Christ?” For forty-five minutes those in attendance made numerous suggestions in response to this question, and the leader carefully wrote down each answer on a large blackboard. All of the comments were thoughtful and appropriate. But after a time, this great teacher erased everything he had written. Then, acknowledging that all of the comments had been worthwhile and appreciated, he taught a vital principle: “The best and most clear indicator that we are progressing spiritually and coming unto Christ is the way we treat other people.”  

Would you consider this idea for a moment—that the way we treat the members of our families, our friends, those with whom we work each day is as important as are some of the more noticeable gospel principles we sometimes emphasize.  

- Marvin J. Ashton (The Tongue Can Be a Sharp Sword) 

Almost Everything Can Be Interpreted Legitimately in More than One Way

I like to consider everything, and I mean everything, in as many ways as possible - literal, symbolic, figurative, allegorical, etc.

I find if I don't close off any possible meaning - if I least consider all possible meanings, I generally can accept more than one interpretation as enlightening and inspiring.

Those Who Are Ready for Meat Can Be Malnourished If They Are Served Only Milk

"When I was a child, I thought as a child," is easy to understand and perpetuate - but Paul also said, "When I became a man, I put away childish things."

I know it's cliche and too broadly quoted, but there really is great wisdom in the idea of milk before meat. The problem arises when it's time for meat and only milk is still being served. The lure and temptation is to focus on those who still need milk and call it a reasonable sacrifice for those who are ready to eat meat; the problem is that those who can eat meat need to eat meat to remain strong - or, to be more precise, to grow stronger.

Our ultimate goal isn't for everyone to be reasonably healthy - or even for nobody to be sickly; it's for everyone eventually to be incredibly strong.

Hitler Might Not End Up in Hell: Why I Believe This Life Alone Does Not Determine Our Eventual End

When it comes to who we believe will be punished for their actions, we make exceptions all the time, gladly, for those whom we understand to be less than fully accountable for those actions – including their acceptance of Jesus and/or Heavenly Father in this life. We generally limit that type of exception to children and the mentally disabled, but I have no idea about any specific limitations Hitler might have had that might have limited his accountability – so, even in that case, I’ll leave the judgment to God.

(Psychopaths are a fascinating discussion when dealing with agency and accountability, since, by clinical definition translated into Mormon-speak, they are understood to be unable to feel the type of remorse that leads to repentance. Were Hitler, Dahmer, Bundy, etc. truly accountable? I certainly want to believe so, but I simply have no idea when it comes right down to it.)

I like the more complicated, multiple-glories concept of Mormonism specifically because it leans toward a break down of the tendency to categorize and judge others – to label them as either Heaven-bound or Hell-bound - to damn them in a real and practical way in our own minds. Sure, we still do it with three degrees of glory and Outer Darkness (and even degrees within the Celestial Kingdom), but the more gradations there are the less likely we are to be positive we understand someone well enough to make that call – or, at least, I hope that is the case.  

If even for no other reason than that, I like the multiple degrees of glory far more than the heaven/hell split. I prefer a simple “many mansions theology”, and I like the idea of etermal progression that ends only when each person has reached his or her ultimate potential (whatever that is individually) – so I tend not to accept the idea that our final reward is determined when we leave this mortal existence. I see at least five stages of development built into our theology already – so, while I don’t believe in multiple mortal probations exactly, I certainly am open to the idea of more stages after mortal death about which we simply don’t have or need information at this time.

A Different Way to Look at the Morning and Afternoon of the First Resurrection

I believe the "days" of creation are better understood as "(radically differing in length) periods of time" - and that any one of the days, for example, could have been millions of years in length.

With that background, the morning and afternoon of the first resurrection might last millions of years - or even stretch into the (plural) eternities.

We have SUCH a limited grasp of time that I'm am certain these terms are symbolic and nearly unknowable for now.

"All Eternity" and "the Eternities"

Just for consideration:

If "perfect" is defined as "whole, complete, fully developed" (see the footnote in Matthew 5:48), and if reaching that condition (rather than a place) is our "destination" . . .

I like the idea that we have an indeterminate length of time (eternity) to reach that destination. In that light, I also love the idea expressed in the term "all eternity" (not just some of it but all of it). I also like the fact that we can speak of "the eternities" - even if I have no real clue exactly what that means. That one "eternity" might come to a close when I reach a certain manifestation of perfection (where I am as whole, complete and fully developed as it is possible for me to become in that "sphere") and another "eternity" might begin at that point for me (where I repeat my pursuit of perfection once more, only at a higher level of completeness) - that idea excites my mind and my heart.

I know it doesn't carry that same excitement for some others, but I absolutely love it.

Eternal Progression: Possibilities of Meaning and What We Choose to Become

What we do affects who we become - or, our attitude affects what we do, which, in turn, affects who we become.

There's a difference in believing in eternal progression as I describe in the sentence above and in believing every single person who ever lives in mortality will reach the highest reward imaginable. I believe the former; I don't believe the latter. I think the quote above describes the general concept - but the extreme toward which each person drifts or runs full-speed is up to them. I just think more people will end up on the same path eventually than many other people think will be the case.

When I say:

What we do affects who we become - or, our attitude affects what we do, which, in turn, affects who we become.

I mean it to apply to movement in any and all directions. It could be argued that "everything is one eternal round" means we all end up circling back to the beginning in the end - or it could mean that the "round" is an ever climbing spiral - or it could mean that in the end we are "restored" to whatever character we were in the beginning - or it could mean everything exists in one giant arena for us to discover - or it could mean that what comes around goes around - or it could mean lots of other things.

I personally think it hints at truly eternal progression, which I personally like to characterize as the ability to progress toward whatever "godhood" to which we orient ourselves - the "godhood" of good or the "godhood" of bad. We tend to spiral toward whatever eventual end we choose - and I also believe that eventual end has very, very little to do with our publicly stated theology and our official religious affiliation. I believe God's grace and the Atonement of Christ are far more powerful than most people understand. There are saintly Mormons and devilish Mormons - as is true of every other religion in existence. I just happen to really love the officially stated direction Mormonism encourages we choose as the intended path of our spirals.

To say it differently, it's not the car you drive, and it's not even necessarily how well you drive it; rather, it's the direction you choose to drive and your determination to continue to drive until the very end of your journey. I might have said the direction in which we drive determines where we end up, with the extension that one can end up on either side of the cosmos (think a sphere cut in equal parts, not a line with two rays leaving the center point) or stall in the middle and simply refuse to drive at all (which would be three ultimate destinations as possibilities, I guess).

What I'm saying fundamentally is that I believe if we get in and drive in the right direction, we eventually will arrive at the right destination - even if that destination simply is a never-ending ride in that direction.

Maybe the Journey Is the Destination

Maybe it's not what we become; maybe it's what we are becoming. The fact that Mormonism posits no end to progression and growth - that it really is a never-ending journey and not a destination - really rings true to me.

I can deal with all the inconsistencies and idiosyncrasies (and even absurdities) that exist when humans try to understand what can't be understood, as long as the "grand cosmology" enthralls me - and Mormonism's grand cosmology really does enthrall me. Other Christian theologies just don't do anything for me. Buddhism is the only alternative that I really like, but there are some aspects of Christianity that I love and see as "true" (including the concept of a Savior and Redeemer) that keep me Christian at the core level.
 
Also, taking almost everything symbolically really helps.

Why Many Truths Are Not Self-Evident

I don't think it's strange that growing causes growing pains. The old saying, "No pain; no gain," really is true.

If you look at it from one angle, the War In Heaven and Garden of Eden narratives draw two distinct alternatives: struggle vs. ease. I see the verse that says, "There must needs be opposition in all things," as much more literal and comprehensive than many people - that when it says "all things", it means ALL things.

So, I would say that truths are not self-evident simply because they aren't - and they can't be if we are here to grow and become on an individual basis.

Elder Wirthlin on the Abundant Life

The following is taken from Elder Wirthlin's talk "The Abundant Life" - and it shows why he is my favorite apostle of all time:

The third quality of those who live abundant lives is that they, with the help of their Heavenly Father, create a masterpiece of their lives.

No matter our age, circumstances, or abilities, each one of us can create something remarkable of his life.

This idea of creating a masterpiece life is centered on personal revelation and my relationship with God. My life at church is just a manifestion of a part of my masterpiece - not the masterpiece itself.

Jesus Does Not Sit on an Unreachable Pedestal

One of the things I love MOST about "pure Mormonism" is that it actually doesn't put Jesus on an unreachable pedestal.

Seriously, if you think about it, the whole idea that we should strive to be Christ-like and that our ultimate ideal is to become like God really destroys the conceptual "gulf of separation" that exists in the rest of Christianity - and even in most of the rest of religion at large. When I look at "having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof", it is exactly this idea (clinging to an unreachable, unattainable God) that I see as its center.

I Will Settle Into a Kingdom When I Am Done Growing

One of my favorite concepts is summed up in the following line:

I will settle into a kingdom when I'm done growing - when I am as complete, whole and fully developed as is possible for me to be.

The Dance of Opposition Within Us

When we begin to awaken to the light of the soul, life takes on a new depth. The losses we have suffered, the delight and peace we have experienced, the beauty we have known, all things belong together in a profound way. One of the greatest treasures in the world is a contented heart. When we befriend the twilight side of the heart, we discover a surer tranquility where the darkness and the brightness of our lives dwell together. We gain the courage to search out where the real thresholds in life are, the vital frontiers, the parts of our life that we have not yet experienced. Beyond work, survival, relationships, even family, we become aware of our profound duty to our own life. Like the farmer in spring, we turn over a new furrow in the unlived field. We awaken our passion to live and are no longer afraid of the unknown, for even the darkest night has a core of twilight. We recover within us some of the native integrity that wild places enjoy outside. We learn to befriend our complexity and see the dance of opposition within us not as a negative or destructive thing but as an invitation to a creative adventure. The true beauty of a person glimmers like a slow twilight where the full force of each color comes alive and yet blends with the others to create a new light. A person's beauty is sophisticated and sacred and is far beyond image, appearance or personality.  - John O'Donohue, "Beauty: The Invisible Embrace"

2 Nephi 2:11 says that there must be opposition in ALL things.  "All things" would include the Church, would it not? It also would include opposition within each individual member.

Perhaps the lack of struggle we crave so much isn't a good thing in the long run - or even possible. Perhaps learning to be at peace with external AND internal opposition is one of the great liberators of the Gospel ("Good News") - the idea that the inherent turmoil that "must needs be" is unavoidable and reconciled ("atoned for") already in the eternal scheme of things. 

In that light, a good friend of mine once wrote:

We devour the beautiful and enticing fruit from the Tree of Knowledge. It is no longer on the tree, shining in appearance. Have we destroyed it? No. We took it inside ourselves. We digest it, and it is assimilated into our being, into every cell. The experience is described as the assimilation of opposites. In order to truly live, we must also die. In order to have joy, we must weep. It's a tension of opposites that plays out like a fractal diagram expanding, creating a life experience. We can fear this. We can find beauty and wonderment in it.

I say we are on a hero's adventure, not sitting in a study hall taking a pass/fail proficiency exam.

Comfort and Growth Sometimes Are Mutually Exclusive

A good friend shared this quote with me:

"There's no growing in the comfort zone, and no comfort in the growing zone."

I Want My Effort to Become Christ-Like to Mean Something Real

If I am going to pursue "becoming like God", I want it to mean something vital and empowering.

I want to believe it is a "real" goal, not just a platitude. I'm not 100% certain of much when it comes to the afterlife, but I at least want to believe I really am an actual child capable of becoming like my actual father.

I don't like the warped perfectionism I see in many people (including too many LDS members), but I will take it as the flip side of the wonderful emphasis on godliness that is embedded so openly in Mormon theology. I want to be striving for exaltation, not be complacent in salvation. I know that seems to be an over-simplification, but I think it's a pretty fair summary of the difference between the actual theologies of Mormonism and other Christian sects.

Attending Church Should Be a Supplemental Activity to Personal Growth

I have heard many people talk about their struggles to find growth and inspiration in the Church - from those who have attended regularly and actively for many years and feel they have heard it all multiple times (that they never hear anything new) to those who have faced disillusionment and find they no longer agree with much of what they hear weekly in meetings. In a very real way, I understand both of these concerns, but I have found a way to mitigate them in my own life - by creating a personal focus of my own that I pursue as my primary spiritual objective independent of what I gain individually from church meetings. This approach has allowed me to attend meetings with the focus of helping others during those meetings - which means that anything I personally gain from them is icing on the cake.

Personally, I have chosen to do so through my New Year's Resolution process, which I chronicle in posts here each Saturday. (Anyone who is not familiar with this process, look back at the posts that I have written on Saturdays - but first read my posts on New Year's Day starting in 2008.) I have focused on internalizing the godly characteristics enumerated in the Sermon on the Mount, the aspects of charity Paul lists in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 and the questions asked in Alma 5. I don't know yet what my focus will be each year in the future, but I have experienced more personal growth from this focus in a few short years than I did for decades prior to starting this journey - and I intend to continue it until I die (or until I no longer am mentally able to do so).

Seeing God in the Mirror: Part 2

Somehow, the post I wrote last night got deleted and there was a weird combination of posts and titles when I logged in this morning.  The following is something I wrote nearly three years ago, and it felt right to re-post it this morning in place of what I lost from last night.  I hope it helps someone, somehow:

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I was struck by something the other day that I have been considering ever since. It is not profound, but the combination of a very common scripture (and then one more) and the effort to understand and become more pure in heart has put something into a little different perspective for me.

The Book of Mormon includes the following statement from Alma, the High Priest, to Korihor, the professed atheist :

"The scriptures are laid before thee, yea, and all things denote there is a God; yea, even the earth, and all things that are upon the face of it, yea, and its motion, yea, and also all the planets which move in their regular form do witness that there is a Supreme Creator." (Alma 30:44)

Alma lays out both a scientific and mathematical argument in this verse - speaking of the complexity of the creation and its intricate, "regular" operation as proof that God exists. In essence, he says:

"This could not be without a God to make it be."

This seems simple to many people - that the creation itself, seen as encompassing all of which we are aware, testifies of a Supreme Creator. They think:

"How is it not self-apparent to all? Why can some people look around - or even study the intricacies of molecular biology and string theory and quantum physics and other astounding modern discoveries - and not see that it simply can't be the result of random mutation from an origin that still is unfathomable to scientists? Why can these people not understand this, even when many of them are very good, moral people? We haven't even scratched the surface of it all, and yet some can't recognize it as a sign of a creator. WHY?"
 

"For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

What struck me is that there is an element of "they shall see God" in one's ability to recognize the hand of God in His creations, but that ability is contingent on "yielding to the enticings of the Holy Spirit" - to having a heart purified by that Holy Spirit. What just hit me this instant, and is changing how this post evolves as I type, is that it is relatively easy - with even a small and comparatively weak connection to the Spirit - to see the grandeur of the universal creation and be humbled into a recognition of God in that creation.

It is more difficult to rise above the natural man and see God in His most inspiring creation - His children.

From both a religious and evolutionary perspective, we are the height of creation - but we also carry within us its depth. We are both god and devil in very practical terms, and, while it is easy for nearly everyone to see the fallen man (the chasm that separates us from God), it is very hard for many to recognize the embryonic god-child within that fallen man (the tie that will be bound in heaven). It is easy to see the caterpillar, but it is very difficult to see the butterfly within that caterpillar when it still is a caterpillar.

One of the most amazing things that happens when our hearts are purified by the power of the Holy Ghost is that, to some degree or another, we glimpse the inner butterflies around us while they still are limited by their caterpillar exteriors - and, in glimpsing those butterflies, we suddenly, in a very real and powerful way, begin to see God.

Charity Beareth All Things: "Bearing" as "Possessing"

In my introductory post for this month's resolution to "bear more things", I focused on the idea that "to bear all things" must be different than "to endure all things" - since bearing and enduring are listed as separate aspects of charity in 1 Corinthians 13:7. Therefore, I looked up the verb "to bear" and listed the possibilities that might reflect what Paul meant in his statement that charity beareth all things. I am going to look at a number of those possibilities this month in these Saturday posts, and I want to start with the one that was a part of more than one definition that stood out to me.

The actual definitions that each include a similar element - that together seem to present a common theme - are:

to be fit for or worthy of: It doesn't bear repeating. - to have and be entitled to: to bear title. - to exhibit; show; to possess, as a quality or characteristic; have in or on: to bear a resemblance; to bear traces; to bear an inscription.

Each of these definitions has an element of possession that, taken together, is striking to me. Interpreting "charity" through the prism of these definitions gives the following re-translations:

Charity is fit for or worthy of all things.

Charity has or is entitled to all things.

Charity exhibits or shows all things.

Charity possesses all things as qualities or characteristics.

These re-translations each are fascinating in their own right, but, in order to analyze this a little further, I want to go back to what I have discussed already this year in each month's resolution post and see precisely what charity is worthy of, entitled to, exhibits and possesses as qualities and characteristics - according to Paul in this chapter.

Based on 1 Corinthians 13:4-7, charity is worthy of, entitled to, exhibits and possesses:

long-suffering - kindness - lack of envy - lack of externally and internally separating pride - propriety - selflessness - forbearance in provocation - purity of thought - repulsion toward iniquity - rejoicing for truth

Thus, when Paul says that charity beareth all things, he might be saying nothing more than that charity is the perfect (whole, complete, fully developed) manifestation of a Christlike character - that a fully and truly charitable person thinks, sees and acts like God - that he "possesses" Godhood.

I really like this perspective, particularly since I believe it fits beautifully into the verses that follow 4-7 in Chapter 13 - that this interpretation leads naturally into verses 8-12 especially, which end with the statement that "then shall I know even as also I am known".

What do you think of this possibility - that "bearing all things" might mean possessing all good qualities and characteristics and knowing even as God knows?