Being an Orthodox Member with Heterodox Views

I am considered an orthodox member of my ward and stake NOT because of the actual nature of my beliefs, but rather because of how I state those beliefs - and, perhaps more importantly, by how I live my life. I don't actively or openly "battle the Brethren" in any way, and when I state my opinion about something in church I almost always do so simply as a statement of opinion - not as a challenge or in an argumentative way. Therefore, even though many of my personal perspectives and beliefs are quite unorthodox, my life and my actions are quite orthodox - and others accept me as orthodox, even though what I say often disagrees with what they say. They don't see me as an opponent, so they don't label me as such in any way.

As a friend once said, I "try to find ways of expressing what might be slightly heterodox modes of faith in more orthodox ways." At its heart, that is much more important, in my opinion, than the academic level of the vocabulary I use and than any need to convince someone else that she is wrong.

Obeying in the Face of Being Forsaken

From the Screwtape Letters:

“You must have often wondered why the Enemy does not make more use of His power to be sensibly present to human souls in any degree . . . He leaves the creature to stand up on its own legs—to carry out from the will alone duties which have lost all relish. It is during such trough periods, much more than during the peak periods, that it is growing into the sort of creature He wants it to be. Hence the prayers offered in the state of dryness are those which please Him best. We can drag our patients along by continual tempting, because we design them only for the table, and the more their will is interfered with the better. He cannot “tempt” to virtue as we do to vice. He wants them to learn to walk and must therefore take away His hand; and if only the will to walk is really there He is pleased even with their stumbles. Do not be deceived, Wormwood.

Our cause is never more in danger, than when a human, no longer desiring, but intending, to do our Enemy’s will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys.”

Reconciling "Unfilled" Promises in Patriarchal Blessings

I have found that as I talk with some people about their Patriarchal Blessings there has been an underlying assumption that their immediate, initial "understanding" of the blessing is correct - that if things don't happen as they assume the blessing describes, then the blessing is "wrong". Two of the best examples of this are those statements that deal with marriage (including children) and longevity.

Let me use two specific examples:

1) Someone is given blessings related to adult life, then that person dies before reaching adulthood. If the Patriarch were seeing the future, wouldn't he have stopped the pronouncement of blessings before marriage and kids and career and education and adult church service? To me, this is the easiest example to address, since I surely wouldn't want it to be stated (or even implied) in a daughter's blessing that she would die as a teenager. I think that would be cruel and would change totally the way she would live her life - and generally not in a positive way.

My takeaway from this example:

A Patriarchal Blessing is a guide focused on a full life. Whether or not each individual lives that full life is not the job of the Patriarch to ascertain - with rare exceptions that prove the rule. There generally is the "dependent on your worthiness" clause (although I know of one case where that clause does not appear and the blessings are phrased in a way that makes it clear that worthiness will never be an issue - which has been correct), but I believe there also is an underlying, unstated, assumed "dependent on the vagaries of life" clause.

2) Someone is told they will marry and raise children, but she reaches the age where she no longer can bear children and is still single. This is tougher, since it seems like such a straightforward promise.

I believe there might be an eternal element to these blessings, but I try to use that only as a last resort - since I believe these blessings are intended primarily as a guide for this life. So how do I reconcile the marriage and children promise?

This is where my own view gets a bit unorthodox. We are conditioned (properly, I believe) to interpret statements like this in accordance with the "Gospel/Church ideal". I believe that must always be our initial read, unless prompted by the Spirit. Therefore, this statement is taken to mean, "You will marry in the temple and give birth to sons and daughters . . ." Many times, however, that simply isn't what actually is said by the words on the page.

Non-temple marriage and adoption are legitimate fulfillment of the actual statement, but it is easy to ignore those options in life if reading only in light of the "ideal". If a person reaches 30 (arbitrary number pulled out of thin air) and has no immediate prospect for a temple marriage, I have no problem whatsoever with that person looking actively for a non-temple marriage - if that person feels inspired to do so. I know that is heretical to many, and I don't preach it as the general rule, but I do know that exceptions do exist for every rule, and 50,000 out of 5,000,000 still would be only 1% - a true exception.

I haven't even gotten to the fact of others' agency and how their choices impact our lives. I think that plays into a lot of the statements in our blessings and whether or not they come to full fruition.

"Seeking Not Her Own" & "Laying Down One's Life"

Last Saturday in my New Year's Resolution post, I started discussing the aspect of charity mentioned in I Corinthians 13:5 that says charity "seeketh not her own". I focused on my own life - what I learned from watching my father interact with my mother and what I learned as I served my future wife.

This week, I want to develop that a bit further by focusing on another iteration of this same general principle - what I see as the ultimate expression of seeking not one's own. It is found in John 15:13, which says:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.

My main point this week, as we delve further into charity seeking not her own is that this verse does NOT equate the greatest love imaginable as that which is exhibited by dying for someone. Rather, it is equated with the type of love that is required to "lay down one's life" for another. I believe dying for someone can be a form (a subset) of this type of love, but I believe in many cases it is the most simple, easiest manifestation of this type of charity. I want to use two common situations to illustrate this perspective:

1) When someone sees another in grave danger (like someone who is in a burning building), there often is a natural desire to save that person - even when the outcome might be one's own death. This is true in many situations even when the person inside the building is a stranger to the person who sees the predicament. This inclination appears to be a primal "survival of the species" instinct - or, if you prefer, the light of Christ that allows us temporarily in that situation to see someone else as worth saving at the cost of our own lives. It is "love" in a sense, but I do not see it as the greatest love imaginable.

2) When one's child or spouse is sick and in danger of dying, it is natural to feel something like, "Take me instead. I gladly will die in this person's place." That sounds noble at first glance, but think about it a little more deeply.

If the person offering to take the loved one's place believes in "heaven" or some other similar concept, the thought of death in this situation would bring feelings of peace and perhaps even a bit of joyous expectation. However, that death, in exchange for a spouse's continued life, for example, would leave the spouse alone - to deal with grief and pain, but also, in many situations, to deal with children and others who are devastated by that death. Iow, that desire to die for someone else is a selfish wish in practical terms, even if it is motivated by a sense of love.

I can't see that as an example of the greatest love imaginable.

So, what is left that would constitute such love and be consistent with the verse itself?

To "lay down" is an action verb - as opposed to "lie down", which simply means to "recline in a position common to sleeping". When someone lays down something, she takes something she has been carrying and lets go of it - placing it somewhere at rest and out of her grasp. I like to use the term "set aside" as a synonym - as in the following translation of John 15:13:

Greater love hath no man than this, that a man set aside his life for a friend.

The Savior's ministry was the ultimate example of this, as his dying for others was "just" a subset of his living for others - the final "part" of the Atonement (excepting his resurrection), but nowhere near the entire Atonement. Think about the following:

A man was raised by Mary and Joseph. We have a story of him being taken to the temple as a baby; we read of him teaching the learned men at the temple when 12-years-old; and we find a statement in Luke 2:52 that he "increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man." (probably the least recognized, acknowledged and understood verse in the entire Bible) Other than that, we have no record of him until the age of 30, when he goes into the wilderness, is tempted, gathers followers, performs miracles and begins his ministry among the people.

Why is a record of the time between age 12 and 30 non-existent?

I believe it is because those were the years of "his life" - the life he "laid down" for his friends. He set aside his own life, and I believe it is important to realize that "Jesus had a life" that needed to be laid down in order to minister and preach and teach and heal and testify and die and rise again.

I believe we hear nothing of wife and children and job and hobbies and travel specifically because that was "his life" that he set aside for us - and that, for me, is MUCH more powerful than if he had jumped into a lake to rescue someone and drowned. He set aside his own life and took up his cross, if you will. He left his own house and "ha(d) not where to lay his head". He might have walked away from the children in his own immediate and/or extended family, some of whom might have died during his ministry, and raised the dead relatives of others.

The example I gave last Saturday of my father setting aside his own life for his beloved wife (first told here) is the closest example I know personally, but laying down one's life for others doesn't have to be so all-encompassing or singular in focus. It can be temporary, or sporadic, or "as needed". It can be short-term and involve multiple people. It can be as simple as stopping to help someone change a flat tire and being late to a meeting as a result.

The key is being able to understand when laying down one's life is appropriate and noble - and, even more importantly, having a heart that is willing to act on that understanding and actually lay down one's life (seek not her own), no matter how long is required.

Sometimes Gray Is Just a Different Black-and-White

Some people simply don't care about religious details. They don't care whether or not religious history is pristine or messy; they don't care about trying to figure out if something a prophet said is the word of God or personal opinion; they don't care about lots of things that drive more analytically-minded people bonkers. They really just don't care. Many of them see things in black-and-white, and many others just don't care about shades of gray.

It’s VERY easy for those of us who care about historical detail and nuance and every issue to attempt to impose our own expectations and perspectives on others who see things differently or just don’t care like we do - to juxtapose a different black and white in the name of seeing gray. If we insist that ALL need to see the gray, that really is just another black and white viewpoint.

An Amazing Interpersonal, Gospel Connection

The Kingdom of God is Within You - Mark Brown (By Common Consent)

Why I Don't Like to Say that God Is "Embodied"

"Embodied" is a word we use sometimes when talking of God, the Father, and Jesus, the Christ. I personally don't like to use it - specifically because of the baggage that surrounds defining the term as people struggle to explain exactly what it means. Let me try to explain.

1) The most concise statement is the one in D&C 130:22, which states:

"The Father has a body of flesh and bones as tangible as man’s; the Son also; but the Holy Ghost has not a body of flesh and bones, but is a personage of Spirit."

2) That appears to be a straightforward statement of "embodiment" - until you consider that we believe Spirits are "embodied" in a very real and "tangible" way.

D&C 131:7-8 says:

"There is no such thing as immaterial matter. All spirit is matter, but it is more fine or pure, and can only be discerned by purer eyes; We cannot see it; but when our bodies are purified we shall see that it is all matter."

3) We speak generally of "flesh" as the outward surface of our bodies (the flexible structure "within" which we are organized) and "bones" as the inward, skeletal structure of our bodies (the "calcified" structure "around" which we are organized). Each of these aspects of our physical bodies is corruptible and subject to decay. The question then becomes, what does it mean to have a resurrected "body of flesh and bones, as tangible as man's"?

By the way, we use the term "body of flesh and bones" because that was the way Jesus described His resurrected body to the disciples to whom He appeared, with whom he spoke and for whom He ate in Luke 24:37-39:

" But they were terrified and affrighted, and supposed that they had seen a spirit. And he said unto them, Why are ye troubled? and why do thoughts arise in your hearts? Behold my hands and my feet, that it is I myself: handle me, and see; for a spirit hath not "flesh and bones", as ye see me have."

So, the D&C makes it clear that spirits are "tangible" and "embodied" just as our physical bodies are - only to a different degree and "discernibility". Given these statements, it becomes very difficult to say with certainty exactly what it means for God to be "tangible" with a body of "flesh and bones" and to be "embodied".

That is a long-winded way of saying that I hesitate to use the term "embodied" specifically I believe it does not describe the condition of the Father (and the Son) in any meaningful way - given our belief that spirits also are "embodied" in a very real way. I prefer to use a description that focuses more on our relation, and I think it is accurate to say that literally "becoming perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" - literally becoming god-like in the fullest sense by reaching a state of godhood similar to that of the Father - literally "growing up to be like Father" - is something that is not found in the orthodox Christian theology of our day. In fact, if there is one thing that gets us labeled as a heretical, damnable cult, that probably is it - even though it is taught MUCH more clearly in the Bible than in the Book of Mormon.

Given all of that, rather than saying that God is "embodied", I generally say something like, "God is our actual Father" - meaning a creator whose offspring can grow to become like Him - whose children can grow up and approximate Him - who is actually a Father in every sense of the word, not just the "spiritual" (or allegorical or symbolic or figurative) ones.

Oh, Father of My Father

You, my Father, There on that Sad Height - Margaret Young (By Common Consent)

Spiritual Intelligence & Humility

“Light and truth” has always fascinated me as a definition of intelligence. (D&C 93:36)

My dad was ecstatic to leave high school and formal education; he worked as a milkman, a type-setter handling hot lead that left his hands rough and calloused, a farm worker between jobs, etc. He retired after 20 years as an elementary school janitor.

He’s one of the most intelligent people I have met in my life, based on the D&C definition. He’s also perhaps the most selfless, humble man I know. I think there's a direct correlation, perhaps even a causation, between humility and spiritual intelligence.

Charity Seeketh Not Her Own

This month's New Year's Resolution is to "seek less my own" - taken from the same verse as last month's resolution, I Corinthians 13:5. (The entire list of monthly resolutions is detailed at my New Year's Resolution post for this year.) In the previous months this year, I have focused on suffering longer in kindness, envying less, being less vaunting and less puffed up, and behaving less unseemly. Each of those aspects of charity has been interesting to parse and strive to understand better, but this month's aspect (seeking less my own) has been fascinating for a totally different reason than the others. Initially, I want to share why it has been so different - and pay tribute to an amazing man, my father, and an amazing woman, my wife.

Almost three months ago, my father had a stroke. I wrote about it in a special post - linked here. In that post, I excerpted from a post I wrote back in November of 2007 about when my niece died unexpectedly - and how my father notified us of that event. I want to link those posts here in order to give anyone who might read this an understanding of how I learned what I believe to be the fundamental core of "seeking not one's own" - and use it as a launching pad for why my contemplation of this month's resolution has been so unique and special for me. Please read those posts if you have not done so previously.

I hope this post is not too personal, but it will be much more so than most of my posts here. I share the following with my wife's permission.

I met my wife almost 28 years ago, on Monday, June 14th, 1982. We were attending a summer youth conference at BYU called Honors Academy. She walked into the room where I was talking with someone else, and my immediate thought was, "Wow! She's the most beautiful girl I've ever seen!" I knew within a week that we were going to be married someday, and I spent the next four and a half years (including the time I spent on a mission in Japan) working toward that day. When we met, I was 16 and she was 15.

My sweetheart kept a journal like few the world has ever seen. Voluminous doesn't even begin to describe those tomes. There were days when the entry was 5-6 pages long, and they were full of not just details but also feelings and hopes and dreams and frustrations and worries and self-doubt. There was no filter to her writing; everything was laid open in those pages. I have spent the last two days sick at home, and I have spent much of it re-reading her journals.

Just as at other times during the past two-and-a-half years, as I have focused on the attributes of godliness and tried to be a little better at something each month, I have been struck the last two days by how appropriate it has been - how non-coincidental it appears to have been - that I have been immersed in re-discovering how much I understood and practiced the concept of "seeking not my own" while I was dating my future wife. I also have been struck DEEPLY by how much I have let go of that over the years and how much I want to grasp it again.

You see, I loved her deeply as we were dating - and while that only has deepened over the last 28 years, it struck me hard that I have not sought as actively as at that time her happiness above my own. I have made sacrifices at various times to accommodate what was best for the family and let go of what might have been best for me individually, but I have not focused my energies as much on "seeking HER own" quite to the extent that I did back then. I understand that my focus necessarily must be divided now that I am working full-time and caring for six children, as well - and I know I am a good husband, but reading her journals from when I so desperately wanted her to know how special she was amid her self-doubts and the emotional turmoil of her teenage years has made me realize that I grew SO much because of that focus.

I lost myself, to a large degree, during those years. I lived my own life, and I did things on my own of which I am proud. I sang in the Trouveres (our high school a'capella group) and won a few music contests; I was the Drum Major of our award-winning marching band; I was a State Sterling Scholar General Scholarship competitor; I was accepted to Harvard College; I had a wonderful life by most objective standards. However, I would have given up all of that if it was the only way to help my girlfriend be happy and recognize her beauty and potential. In a very real way, I lived for her - and, in so doing, I found amazing joy in losing myself. I was "seeking not (my) own" - and, as a whole, it was the happiest, most glorious time of my life.

How does that translate into my life now - especially, as I said, now that I have competing aspects of my life that pull my focus away from just the love of my life?

As I began to consider this month's resolution, what struck me HARD is that I am at a bit of a crossroads in my life. I have struggled recently as I have sought to strike a balance between some things I really want badly as an individual and some things that I have felt drawn to as a husband, father, church member and friend. It has been difficult for me to let go of some of my dreams once more and realize that, perhaps once again, I need to lose myself as an individual and do some things strictly because there are things that I can do for others - that only can be accomplished if I choose to "seek not my own".

There is more to this resolution than simply seeking not my own accomplishments and dreams in isolation (and I will address that in future posts this month), but I wanted to begin this resolution by thanking my wife for the chance to read her journals once again from the time when I truly was the happiest I have ever been - and for what it has made me consider about what I need to do at this time in my life.

I don't know if this will make sense or resonate with anyone who reads it, and I will be back to the more analytical side of these resolutions posts next week, but I simply want to start this month's focus with a public statement that helping others be happy and secure, even at the expense of things that could be pursued on a personal level, is perhaps the purest form of "seeking not one's own" - and focusing on re-discovering how that (and more) applies to the here and now for me is something that I need to do.