Prophets as Anchor of Truth in its Purity

Many people today chafe at the idea of having someone else tell them what to do with their lives. When it comes to the structure of the Mormon church, they claim that we “blindly follow” whatever the prophets say, that we are in slavery to them (does this sound like Korihor to anyone?). And while us Mormons do believe in doing whatever the prophet counsels us to do, we tend to view it a little differently. But these people bring up an interesting question: Why do people who are able to use their own fully competent brains to make their own fully sound decisions need a prophet to tell them what to do?

Good question. I’m not sure I know all the reasons, but I have discovered enough to reassure my mind of what the Spirit had already taught my heart. Although in the end what will matter will be the individual spiritual confirmation each of us has of the prophet’s divine calling, sometimes the Spirit teaches us through reason. So can we take a look at some of the reasons why we have a prophet?

As Mormons, we come from so many different backgrounds. Nationally, economically, culturally, and ethnically we are all so diverse. We need this diversity. From people who are different from us we learn new ways of looking at the gospel, ways that heighten our own perspective of the gospel. We learn how to get along with people, how to understand them better, how to serve and love like Jesus did (and does).

But some of these diversities include views on the gospel that are not quite doctrinal (this includes ideas sometimes brought to the table by long-life members). The goal is to keep those things from our culture that bring us closer to the Savior and to discard those ideas that keep us from fully embracing His role in our lives. And as we use the guidance of the Holy Ghost and the words of the scriptures, we can all achieve this balance. The danger comes when, instead of changing the culture we grew up with to fit the doctrine, we instead change the doctrine of the church to fit our culture.

We see this in the New Testament as Peter and Paul tell the Jewish converts to Christianity that the Law of Moses was fulfilled in Christ. They don’t just tell them this once, nor even twice, but again and again. It takes a long time for the Jewish converts to stop trying to fit the Savior’s gospel to suit the culture they are used to, instead of changing their culture to better fit the gospel.

Of course there was other confusion tied up with the idea of abandoning the Law of Moses; it was the Jewish way of worshipping the Savior, after all, so it’s perfectly understandable that, for them, being told that the Law was now unnecessary was a little hard to understand. The point I’m making, though, is that the people of these time needed a leader, a spokesman from the Lord, to steer them back onto the gospel path at a time when they were steering off it.

We see this idea of culture overtaking doctrine in modern-day culture as well, even in Mormon religious strongholds such as Utah. While most Utah Mormons I know are very devoted, Christ-like people, the stereotype associated with the phrase “Utah Mormon” does exist here in the here in the Mormon Bubble. Utah Mormons, beyond being Mormons who live in Utah, are those hypocritical church-goers who have gotten so caught up in the cultural aspects of living in Utah that they have strayed from actual Mormon doctrine. Specifically, I’m talking about the tendency to try to look perfect as a way to portray yourself as either “good enough”, or as better than your non-Mormon (or less righteous Mormon) neighbors. And indeed, sometimes here in the Mormon Bubble it does feel as if you’ve got to be perfect to fit in.

Tied into these beliefs is the idea that if you want people to think you’re righteous, first you’ve got to convince them that nothing in your life ever goes wrong. Or, if it does, that it doesn’t upset you. Righteous people are always happy, always faithful, have big homes, lots of money, and lots of perfect, happy children. Outwardly, they are blessed of the Lord. Strangely enough, nowhere in the scriptures is this doctrine taught. And if you look at the words of modern-day prophets and apostles, you’ll find that this unique Utah Mormon doctrine is preached against time and time again (for example, see President Uchtdorf’s talk "Forget Me Not" from October 2011). 

Of course there are many other examples out there of culture being confused with doctrine all across the world. This is just one example of something that, as a Mormon from Utah, I have experienced in my life. The difference between culture and doctrine, actual truth and mere tradition, is a very tricky thing to figure out.

When these distortions happen, prophets and apostles, as men who speak for God, catch on to this much quicker than we do. They teach the truth in its purity. You’ll notice that they tend to talk about the same basic principles over and over again. This is for those times when we start to get our culture mixed up with our doctrine, as a way to guide us back to the actual doctrine that we as Mormons profess to believe in. People from different backgrounds bring with them different interpretations of the gospel, and this is helpful and needed in giving us a different perspective than the limited scope of our life’s experiences. And then, with the prophet’s words as our guide, if any one we come into contact with tells us something that we’re not sure is correct doctrine, we can check it against the words of the prophets to see if it is in line with God’s truth, or whether it is a cultural misinterpretation, or whether we merely think that it’s a cultural misinterpretation because of our own cultural biases.

Of course we can turn to the scriptures to learn the basics of the doctrine as well, but God is not done revealing things, and at any rate, the cultural distortions common today are much different than the ones in the time of Moses. Not many people today think that it’s all right to worship golden calves, but buying a flat-screen T.V. before paying tithing or providing for your family? That’s a lot more common and, strangely enough, not something that ever gets mentioned in the Bible. I don’t think Moses or even Moroni knew anything about the potential benefits and dangers of social media, diet fads, or even the addictive nature of pervasive pornography. Elder Bednar, a modern-day apostle, on the other hand, obviously does.

The prophet and apostles provide an anchor of truth. The church as an organization thrives when people bring unique viewpoints into it, but we need something with which to measure the doctrinal accuracy of both our own unique viewpoints and those of others. Cultures and traditions and programs change; God’s doctrine never will. The Plan of Salvation was set forth before the world began, and it will never change, regardless of what mankind may teach. The Doctrine of Christ, as well, was set forth before the world began and will therefore never change. The centrality of family, the power of the Priesthood, the ten commandments - all of these are things that will never change, regardless of what the world believes. Sometimes people’s unique ideas about the gospel – including our own – are very insightful, and sometimes they include false doctrine. Apostasy happens so quickly (read any of the epistles in the New Testament for an example of how the cultural environment of an individual causes them to warp doctrine to better fit their neighbor’s ideas of the world), and without a leader there to keep emphasizing the things God needs us to know – to restate the basic doctrine over and over again – we all, like sheep, would go astray (see Isaiah 53:6)

One final scripture as a springboard for your personal continued study of this idea:

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists; and some, pastors and teachers; For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive.

-Ephesians 4:11-14                                                                 

Community Conversion

Lately I have been pondering a lot on the purpose of religion as an organization. As a private, solitary creature, a definite introvert, I prefer that my sacred experiences either occur in private or are shared with a small number of people of my choosing. As my relationship with the Lord is something that even as an English major I do not have the words to describe, I also tend to not feel that all my moments of continuing conversion to the gospel should be put on display for the world to witness. So partaking of the Sacrament in a large group setting can feel unnatural to me, as can attending the temple with a room full of strangers. Sometimes I just want to worship in private, and I don’t understand why I have to worship in a group.

But as much as I believe that certain experiences should occur in private settings, also believe in the scriptures and the words of modern-day prophets, and I do believe that God is speaking through them when they emphasize things such as weekly church attendance, monthly visiting and home teaching, sharing testimony of the gospel with others, and other sacred experiences that require a group setting to occur.

Why, though? Why does the Lord emphasize this idea of “community conversion” so much when He also very much wants us to have our own personal relationship with him? Why do we go to church instead of just studying our scriptures at home on our own, or even with our family? Why this need for a religious organization, instead of just a religion?

As I’ve pondered this over the past several months, the Spirit has let seep several eternal principles into my heart, as well as into my mind. A lot of them come from the talk “Why the Church” by Elder D. Todd Christofferson from this last General  Conference. The rest of them come from Mosiah 18, a wonderful chapter on how the church as an organization is meant to function.

Because I have a lot of thoughts on this topic, I will be posting one or two insights at a time, rather than overwhelm you with all of them all at once. But to start with:

It strengthens my testimony to hear like-minded people speak of the same things that are in my heart. Hearing others’ perspectives helps me to look at things in a different light, giving me a more complete understanding of the gospel. It helps me to know that I am not the only one who believes what I believe. Sometimes it helps to realize that I’m not the only one who doesn’t have all the answers, but that I’m also not the only one who is willing to press on in faith anyway. It helps to know that other people exist who sacrifice for family, for God, for religious freedoms. The whole is more than the sum of its parts, and I feel this sometimes when I’m with a group of people – my ward, my Relief Society, my visiting teachers, my online missionary committee – who are trying to help other people find more hope, faith, and love through coming unto Christ.  These people strengthen me and help me feel less alone as a valiant follower of Christ.

Which brings me to my next point: Our baptismal covenant includes going to church. Not just so we can take of the Sacrament, or else church services would only be ten minutes long. To strengthen others in the same way that they strengthen us. In Mosiah 18:8-10, Alma says to the people he has been preaching to:

as ye are desirous to come into the fold of God, and to be called his people, and are willing to bear one another’s burdens, that they may be light; yea, and are willing to mourn with those that mourn; yea, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort . . . Now I say unto you, if this be the desire of your hearts, what have ye against being baptized in the name of the Lord?

We promised at baptism to serve God, and what that promise really meant was that we would serve His children. “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me” (Matthew 25:40). When we serve others, we strengthen our relationship with God. We understand better the love He has for us because we feel more of that love for other people inside of us. We start to understand the significance of the Savior’s sacrifice for us as we too learn the hardship and joy of sacrificing for other people. Our callings refine us, humble us, help us understand who, exactly, the Savior is on a deeper level: “If I then , your Lord and Master, have washed your feet; ye also ought to wash one another’s feet.” The Lord knows us perfectly because He experienced our sufferings in the Garden of Gethsamene (see Alma 7:11-13) We come to know who He is and what He did for us as we too "bear one another's burdens" as we strive to fulfill our baptismal covenants.

And on the other side of things, we learn to accept the Savior’s love and forgiveness as we allow other people to love and forgive us. We learn to accept the Savior’s infinite saving gift as we let other people do things for us that save our day. We learn how to love, and we learn how to be loved. Both are an essential part of who we need to be to experience true joy, and these are principles of the gospel that cannot be learned in isolation.

Naturally Renewing

There are mornings where just looking at the mountains causing such a stirring in my heart – I guess you could call it joy, or gratitude, or excitement for life – whatever it is, it makes me happy to be alive.

And I wonder if it’s because the mountains are a place I have always been taken to get away from the worries and stresses of life, away from school and work and the never-ending presence of other people and buildings and cars. A place I equate with being alone and at peace with nothing to prove and no one to prove it to.

Because as much as I love socializing and getting to know new people, there is a part of me that will always needs its space to figure out who I am away from the confusion of other ideas and opinions and theories and personalities and beliefs. How am I like these people and how am I different? Too many presences of other people pressing on my own sense of self overwhelms me, drowns me in its complexity, and I have to run to someplace devoid of the evidence of human civilization to slowly be able to let my own self seep through again.

I suppose that’s why I find such joy in riding my bike. Nobody can keep up with me, nobody wants to, I can look at the houses and the mountains and the trees and not worry about anybody looking at me.

Most days I go down to the trail by the river, pavement surrounded on one side by a darkly flowing river and on either side by trees, now changing color to match their cousins in the mountains.

This is heaven. The wind, the smell of water, the leaves falling and covering the path, no one expecting me to talk or think or do anything but keep those wheels moving, round and round and round and round, and it feels so good to run away from the things that stress me most.

And sometimes I find a place where I can walk my bike down to the bank of the river, and I leave my bike behind with my stress as I walk along the packed-down dirt and stones and plants. And sometimes I just sit and memorize the ever-changing pattern of the river’s flow, or the way the trees grow sideways off the bank on the opposite side.

And, if it’s not too muddy, I take slow steps into the river itself, letting the coldness of it flow over my sandal-shod feet on its way to where it’s going from wherever it’s coming from.

And while it would be interesting to find out where those places are, all that matters right now is that at this moment in time the water is running over my toes, cooling my feet and calming my soul. I watch the water as it goes, and marvel at how it’s always replaced by more water in a never-ending cycle of renewal.

And with that constant renewal of water comes a renewal of the worn-down pieces of my soul, and again I feel excited to be alive.

Inspired Mistakes

I’m scared of making mistakes. The fear of saying the wrong thing freezes words in my throat, and sometimes I so want to be that perfect person that even when I know I should act, I find the pressure of saying the right words keeping me from saying anything at all.

“To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven: . . . a time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up; a time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance” (Ecclesiastes 3:1-4).

A time to make mistakes, and a time to perform flawlessly. A time to demand exactness of oneself, and a time to relax judgment in favor of understanding and love.

The prophet Lehi teaches the necessity of “an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11). Misery and holiness, good and bad, life and death. Adam and Eve disobeyed so we can live with God forever. Heavenly Father allowed them to fall so that through the Atonement we may all be lifted up to endless glory.

“And now, behold, if Adam had not transgressed he would not have fallen, but he would have remained in the Garden of Eden.” And what would he and Eve have been doing while stuck in there? “No good, for they knew no sin” (2 Nephi 2:22-23).

If we never mess up, we never learn how to avoid those same mistakes later on.

In my growing up years, I performed at many a piano concert. None of them went flawlessly, although most of them were close enough. Surprisingly, the passages I struggled with in practice were not the same ones I struggled with in performance. Why not? Because the difficult passages I practiced over and over and over again until they were my forté. Those passages I never messed up on I didn’t take the time to drill, and thus they became my downfall. They were not ingrained in my memory the way the more difficult parts of the piece were, so when the pressure was high and my nerves even higher I reached those “easy” passages and I stumbled. It was my weaknesses that became my strengths and saved my performances from failure.  

I remember one summer working a month of Sundays. When I finally went back to church, I realized for the first time how big of a difference that weekly spiritual feast makes in my temperament. I hadn’t been that cheerful at work in a long time. Would I ever be willing to miss church now? Heck. No.

Or the time on my mission when I did not have the health to work all day every day like I so wanted to. Anytime I felt well enough to be up and about, I made sure we got out of the apartment and worked. That was why I was there, after all. But somewhere in all my focus on the work, I neglected to take the time for my own personal studies. After a week-and-a-half, I recognized that my level of crankiness was lower than normal, and I thought: “Man, maybe I should start reading my scriptures again.” And back up my mood went. Have I missed a day of scripture study since then? No, and I never will. I understand now the necessity of feeding myself spiritually before I can feed others spiritually.

And I learned these lessons through messing up. I’m not saying that anything we ever learn comes about through the mistakes we make, and I’m definitely not advocating intentional mistake-making. All I’m getting at is that Heavenly Father is all right with us making mistakes. He’s provided us with that possibility as a way for us to learn.

“Behold, I will show unto the Gentiles their weakness, and I will show unto them that faith, hope and charity bringeth unto me – the fountain of all righteousness” (Ether 12:28).

We wouldn’t have reason to come unto Christ if we didn’t recognize our weakness. And how would we recognize our weaknesses if we never acknowledged our mistakes? “And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness.” Not for the sake of discouragement, but “that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me.” And then, of course, comes the promised blessing at the end: “then will I make weak things become strong unto them” (Ether 12:27). 

I see this in my life every day. For a girl who used to be so shy, I am surprisingly social. For someone who loves her independence, I am wonderfully dependent on my Savior. And every day I recognize new changes in myself, changes that have come about slowly through mistake after mistake. 

Our weaknesses bring us down so we can rise again through Christ. A time to fall, a time to be lifted up by the Savior of all mankind. Christ Himself “descended below all things, in that he comprehended all things, that he might be in all and through all things.” We have to fall before we can learn to trust the Savior to lift us all the way up to Heavenly Father. We have to make mistakes so that we can understand that we can never fall so far that the Savior cannot heal everyone affected by that fall. Mistakes are vital. They make us human. They are why we are here on earth – so that by making them, we can learn to give our burdens to the Savior and let Him bear the weight.

For more on this idea of mistakes and weakness, check out this inspired book: Weakness is Not Sin

Biffing It

First day of classes on BYU campus and I want to get the semester off to a good start. I wake up at 7:00, trot down the stairs of my apartment complex, unlock my bike from its post, swing my leg over its frame, and head off down the street. Brisk air, legs pumping, wheels turning fast. Freedom. Approaching the intersection at 800 N and University, I go to get on the sidewalk to avoid the confusion I always feel as a cyclist pretending to be a motorized vehicle. My bike hits the lip of pavement separating the sidewalk from the road, my bike starts to wobble, and . . .

I biff it. Biff it good. My bike slips, I try hopelessly to keep it upright, I think desperately, “I’m not even wearing a helmet,” and bam! I hit the pavement. A fellow cyclist riding by on the other side of the street sees my demise and shouts out, “Are you okay?” Having not fully assessed my situation myself, all I can do is shout back a shaky “Yes?” and the cyclist rides on. I stand up and examine myself. Left elbow: bleeding. Quite a bit. Right knee: scraped, but not bleeding yet. It could have been much worse.

I walk my bike back home, elbow dripping blood, handlebars twisted out of alignment with my front tire. I walk into my apartment and show my roommate my battle wound, expecting her to laugh with me at the irony of a college senior who rides her bike almost every day for the sheer joy of it and hasn’t crashed it in at least ten years losing control over something as small as a one-inch difference in surface level. How does that even happen?

But she didn’t laugh. She exclaimed: “Oh my goodness! Are you okay? Did you hit your head? Is your bike all right?” And I thought, “What the heck? That crash was so pathetic, I thought the world would laugh at it along with me.”

But they didn’t. No one did. My parents, my siblings, friends, roommates, ward members. They all responded with genuine concern that carried no trace of amusement.

Why? How could they not laugh at the irony of someone my age, as experienced with bike riding as I am, crashing so easily?

But it seemed instead that they grasped the tragedy of someone – no matter the age or experience level – slamming to the ground at such a speed when not wearing even a helmet as protective gear.

And as I pondered their reactions, and how they differed from mine, I thought of the Savior and how His response to when I mess up so often differs from mine.

Because sometimes even at my experienced age, there comes a day when I unexpectedly fall. Days when the same situation I’ve dealt with over and over again and gotten really good at handling in a Christlike/professional/confident/whatever-adjective-you-want way rears its angry head yet again, and I think, “I’ve got this,” but somehow . . . I biff it. I biff it good.

And I know I’m not the only one. We all have experiences where something small throws us completely off. We lose our temper, we say something rude, we say the wrong thing, we don’t say anything at all, we know what we should do and we don’t do it – whatever it is, we do it wrong, and we can’t believe that at our age, with our level of experience, we could mess up so bad.

I’ve been there. On the mission, standing at the doorstep and someone answers. It’s my turn to do the door approach, and I freeze and words stumble out in a random order that vaguely makes sense but also vaguely makes it sound like I’m completely terrified. Or while teaching, and I think, “How do I begin a lesson without it feeling awkward?” and then five minutes later I realize that I jumped straight into the lesson without giving How to Begin Teaching even a passing thought. Because even though I’ve been doing the same thing over and over again for the past year of my life, sometimes my mind goes blank and . . . I biff it. Biff it good.

Or now, back to civilian life, and I think: How do I make friends? How do I make small talk? How do I motivate myself to do homework when I have no desire to do it? I thought I had this all figured out before the mission, but now things have changed – I’ve changed – and the things that worked for me before don’t always work for me now. And over and over again I wonder: How do I this without falling?

And while I’m slowly figuring it out, there are still those times when I hesitate and I stumble and . . . I biff it. Biff it good. Little things that I thought I had already figured out throw me off, and I feel my confidence in myself being slammed to the ground, feel it as it starts to bleed. And it’s not a comedy, and it’s not a tragedy, it’s pathetic and stupid and frustrating and I have no patience for it. Me, at my age, with my level of experience and hard work, acting like I’m still a college freshman? Please. Surely I can do better than that.

But then I had my experience with crashing my bike the first day of classes, and the reactions of my parents and siblings and friends surprised me. And maybe this is because I often compare my Father in Heaven’s love with the love I feel from all those Christlike souls around me, but suddenly I understood: Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ never view my falls as humorous or annoying. They view them as a tragedy. Not a tragedy, exactly, because there’s always the hope of a happy ending, and of course pain is an integral, needed part of life, but I know that when I don’t perform as well as I wish I had, they feel my pain. They feel my disappointment in myself – but they are not disappointed in me. They cry with me because they love me and they understand that, as a mortal being, I will fall. For reasons that I do not understand, I will crash that bike, and I will biff it. I will biff it good. And they are infinitely more concerned with how I am doing than with the crash. Am I okay? Is my heart all right? Did I hit any unprotected part of my soul? And I can just picture them hugging me, like a mother embracing her child who has just experienced her first scraped knee, and I know that they don’t judge me for not being perfect at something I thought I had perfected long ago.

And slowly I am learning to view my falls in the same way. Not as a comedy, not as an illustration of how pathetic I can be, but as something that hurts my soul of infinite worth, something deserving of a hug and a kiss to make it better, an incident when I have permission to feel the pain of crashing and still feel concern for myself and my well-being. Because more important than my circumstances is the way I respond to them, and only as I treat myself with love can I view those around me with the same depth of emotion. And isn't that what the gospel is all about? About seeing those around us as a whole being and being concerned, not with their weaknesses and imperfections, but with their emotions and their needs and how to help them know their worth and their potential and how they can work to achieve it? 

That involves loving them as they fall. Not judging them, not thinking less of them, not arrogantly wondering how in the world they could manage to fail at something so simple, but seeing them at their center and wanting them to find joy. And to feel that way towards others, we must first start with feeling that way towards ourselves. 

I See a Light! Part II

(To recap) If the light is the source of everything worthwhile, then why do we so often stray?

There are two categories of reasons that come readily to my mind: distractions and doubt. I will talk about each of them separately, although they do often tend to overlap.

A distraction can be anything that causes us to take our eyes off of the light that is the Savior of the world. These things can include: political ideologies that we have a different opinion on than do the prophets and apostles (or even just our fellow members at church), deep doctrine that doesn’t make sense to us, church history that we can’t reconcile with what the scriptures teach us, imperfect Priesthood leaders whom we don’t understand why they were put in positions of power and authority . . . I could go on. A lot goes on in the church, and sometimes people use things they don’t understand – or make no effort to understand – as a reason to leave. The thing is, though, none of these concerns that I mentioned are the light. They are merely specks on the horizon. Sometimes as we look towards the light, and especially as we’re looking from a far-off distance, it’s easy to see these distractions and hard to tell that they are not included in the light. But the closer we get to the light the more the light illuminates the things around it, and the easier it is to see and understand how these different issues fit into the context of an imperfect world and imperfect people made by a perfect God with a perfect plan. The important thing to remember is that these specks on the horizon are nowhere near as big or all-encompassing as the light, and ultimately they change nothing about the reality of a loving Savior. These issues do not define the Savior; rather, the light of the Savior helps us define them through the viewpoint of eternity. Who knows what the horizon that Sailor headed towards looked like? She could easily have been distracted by the sound of barking dogs coming from the direction she was headed, or by burnt-out trees or other ugly scenery on the way to her light – but it wasn’t the scenery she was headed for. It was the light that gave her hope, and she was not about to let anything keep her from reaching that source of healing she had chosen to believe lay at the end of her journey. The moment she reached the light, the harshness of the horizon faded in significance to the peace that came from knowing that she had found her source of healing.

The second category of reasons why we stray from the light is doubts. We doubt that we’ll ever be good enough, we doubt that Heavenly Father has enough love to forgive us, we doubt that the harshness of the journey will be worth it, we don’t understand why we’ve been given such a difficult trial to deal with. We doubt ourselves or we doubt our Savior (and I think those two doubts are one and the same). We doubt that peace, joy, love, healing can be ours – and so we don’t even try for it. 

But when we do this, we let spiritual (and sometimes physical) wounds keep us from our journey to the only one who has the power to heal our wounds. Other sources can patch us up, make us feel better – but they can’t replace scabs with perfect skin. Only the Savior can do that – and He does it with spiritual wounds as well. He replaces despair with hope, confusion with understanding, fear with faith and love, anger and bitterness with love and forgiveness. He helps us see us and the world around us the way that He sees them. It’s a higher perspective, and it is Truth and Beauty defined.

These promised blessings don’t come fully overnight. The sun comes up over several hours’ time, and the changing of a soul is an even more powerful miracle than that. It takes repetition, much like building muscle. It takes day after day after day of repeating the same basic things over and over and over again, and as we do so we feel our strength and joy increasing. Sailor had to put one foot in front of the other over and over and over again and never stop, no matter what. None of us will ever be completely done with our journey to the light until we are united with the light completely – and that won’t happen until resurrection and judgment and our assignment into the kingdom whose glory our own soul best reflects.

Offering Love and Freedom

This morning I read an article linked to on my Facebook page that really made me think. It was written by an ex-Mormon who described the way he was treated as he left the church, and how he has been treated since. It seemed to me that that main point of the article was to call out church members for not practicing what they preach, for shaming and judging and labeling those who choose to leave the church rather than showing them Christ-like love, understanding, compassion, room to make their own decisions, even if those decisions seem to us to be a mistake.

This writer has a point. Do we assume that we know what people who believe and act differently from us are feeling, are thinking, where their life is headed? Because we don’t. We barely even know what we’re feeling, what we’re thinking, where our life is headed. All of us are trying to live our lives to the best of our knowledge. And because knowledge comes from life experience and everybody’s experiences are unique, the knowledge that we gain in this live will always be different than the knowledge of those around us. And so we build our individual lives, brick of hard-earned knowledge upon brick of even harder-earned knowledge, and we look at the structures other people are building and we think, “What in the world are they thinking to be building something like that?” Well, maybe they’re thinking the same thing about the structure that we’re building, and as we mislabel each other’s structures and try to get everyone’s structure to look exactly like ours we’re overlooking one important point: None of us are even using the same bricks. Your structure will never look the same as mine, much as mine will never look the same as yours. You can try, but that kind of a structure will always fail. No matter how similar we may seem on the outside, there are always miniscule differences in our building bricks that become more and more apparent the more we get to know each other.

And maybe one reason we assume things about these people who see the world so differently than we do is because we’re scared. Differences in our makeup as compared to other people scare us. Not always, and not everyone, but often. Maybe especially in the Mormon world. If someone else believes strongly that what I believe with all my heart is false – what happens if they’re right? What does it say about how I’m living my life, about how I’ve always lived my life, about this foundation that I’ve spent years and countless years building deep into the ground to give myself something to be anchored to so that when hard times come I won’t be knocked down with the wind of uncertainty? What happens if they’re right. . . and I’m wrong?

Psychologically speaking, this is a valid concern. Other beliefs threaten ours. We can’t both be right. Either they’re wrong, or the whole basis for how I pattern my life is. That’s a scary thought. So we get defensive. We have to be right because if we’re not, there goes everything that validates our existence. So the obvious conclusion is that we are right – and they’re wrong. Completely, 100% wrong. Anything in what they have to say that sparks of truth threatens everything we’ve always believed – and that’s a terrifying feeling.

We don’t have to be this way. You don’t have to be this way. Because maybe both of you are right. Maybe their experiences are valid. Maybe if you had had the same experiences, you’d feel the same way. And maybe not. There’s no way of knowing. All you do know is the experiences you have had. The experiences where God has answered your prayers with a feeling of intense comfort, or reassurance, or peace, or maybe even a though that you know was not your own. The experiences where you’re reading the scriptures, and suddenly you know that your Savior is right there with you, telling you the same things He’s telling the people in the scriptures. And on and on and on. Those experiences are real. Someone else not understanding them will never make them invalid. All it means is that that person is not you, and therefore can never fully understand what you have gone through in your life. The only person who can ever do that is the Savior Himself. And that person standing there, presenting a differing viewpoint of life and religion, threatening your beliefs? That person is not Jesus – which also mean that he/she does not, by definition cannot, understand the universe in its entirety. Why not? Because they did not create it in its entirety under the direction of the Supreme Ruler of the Universe.

This also implies something else interesting: with all the things that have been revealed through the Restoration of the Gospel, we still don’t know everything there is to know. Why not? Mainly from a lack of personal experience. I don’t know what it’s like to be gay. I don’t know what it’s like to be a male member of the Mormon church who, for whatever reason, is not able to serve a full-time mission. I don’t know what it’s like to have cancer or to come from a rough family background. So how can I understand people like them unless I take the time to listen to them, to really understand who they are, and why? And without understanding them, how can I possibly begin to understand why they do the things they do?

So maybe people who leave the church really are happier outside it than in. Maybe it’s because the people around them misunderstand the Atonement and the purpose for the organization of the church to the point that it makes it difficult for these individuals to understand it. Maybe they’re sick of being judged. Maybe they don’t understand everything they’ve discovered about church history. Maybe they’ve read too many anti-Mormon articles. Whatever it is, how do we know that if we were in their shoes, we wouldn’t also see the appeal of leaving? All that telling them that they need to repent does is further alienate them. That is not love. Love is making sure they are 100% certain that they can spend time with you without you thinking you’re better than them because you’ve made choices that are more righteous. Everyone needs a place where they feel safe from judgment. That is the only way anyone will ever trust. They can know your beliefs without feeling judged because they don’t share them, just as we want to spend time with people whose beliefs are different than ours without feeling judged because we don’t share their (possibly more “politically correct”) beliefs.

All I’m asking for is understanding and freedom. Love and agency. Two central principles of the gospel. So many times I’ve wanted to go back to my mission and genuinely get to know the people who weren’t interested in what I had to teach. They were good people, and I was curious about their points of view and why they saw life that way – what did they have to add to they way I view the gospel? I couldn’t have done that while on the mission – but I can do it now. My point of view is not always correct. I am not God, I did not create this universe, this world, the people in it, and, like everyone else, my experience on this earth is limited. I’m still learning. Other experiences from other people’s backgrounds help me gain a more God-like perspective. Even if those people are not entirely correct in their viewpoint, something they say will help me gain a better understanding of humanity, of actions and consequences, of the part each of us has to play in this world. There is always something to learn from the people around us, whether or not they share our beliefs, and we can only learn it we stop judging them for long enough to listen.