I had another dream, I had another life
Last February, I was privileged to present at the 2015 Faith & Knowledge Conference at the University of Virginia. My paper drew on management literature and Mormon history to begin constructing a coherent Mormon theology of work.
I’ve finally posted my presentation over at Worlds Without End. Better late than never. If your interests include business or Mormon Studies, give it a read.
This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.
The talk that struck me the most this week was Elder A. Theodore Tuttle’s The Things that Matter Most. He began his talk with an excerpt from a Deseret News article about how racing greyhounds, which are trained to chase a fake rabbit around the track, don’t even know what a real rabbit looks like. According to the editorial Elder Tuttle quoted:
We chase social pleasures on a glittering noisy treadmill—and ignore the privilege of a quiet hour telling bedtime stories to an innocent-eyed child. We chase prestige and wealth, and don’t recognize the real opportunities for joy that cross our paths.
This immediately reminded me of Jonathan Haidt’s book The Happiness Hypothesis. In the book, Haidt—a social psychologist we often cite here at Difficult Run because of his work on Moral Foundations Theory—distills important lessons from a variety of world philosophies through the lens of psychology. According to Haidt (writing in a followup book), “One of the greatest truths in psychology is that the mind is divided into parts that sometimes conflict.”[ref]The Righteous Mind, page 27[/ref]
In The Happiness Hypothesis, Haidt talks about the rider (the conscious, deliberate, rational side of our minds) and the elephant (the intuitive and emotional side of our minds). As an intuitionist, Haidt puts a lot of emphasis on the intuitive sides of our nature (the elephant). He underscores how important our intuition is (even to logical, analytical thinking) and also highlights how sophisticated our intuitive natures are. However, there are drawbacks, one of the most important of which is this:
The elephant cares about prestige, not happiness, and it looks eternally to others to figure out what is prestigious. The elephant will pursue its evolutionary goals even when greater happiness can be found elsewhere.[ref]The Happiness Hypothesis, page 101[/ref]
The elephant is the product of evolution and natural selection. It cares about prestige because status—in primates—is what provides access to reproduction. It doesn’t care about happiness or fulfillment because happiness and fulfillment are, from a genetic perspective, kind of beside the point. This is why the pursuit of prestige—nice job, nice car, nice house—is so irresistible. It’s embedded in our biological natures. And it’s a treacherous trap, as Haidt points out, because pursuit of prestige is always a zero-sum game.[ref]In game theory, a zero sum game where any player can only win what they take from another player. That is why it is a “zero sum game”: the total of winnings and losings always amounts to nothing.[/ref]
If everyone is chasing the same limited amount of prestige, then all are stuck in a zero-sum game, an eternal arms race, a world in which rising wealth does not bring rising happiness. The pursuit of luxury goods is a happiness trap; it is a dead end that people raced toward the mistaken belief that it will make them happy.[ref]The Happiness Hypothesis, page 101[/ref]
Sound familiar?
Elder Tuttle then points out that the people who are most vulnerable to being trampled when our inner elephant charges off in search of status and prestige are the people we care about the most:
Our most flagrant violations, perhaps, occur in our own homes. We chase worldly pleasures and neglect our own innocent children. When did you tell stories to your children?
Every single night I pray for help in resisting this. When you’re a parent, the days crawl and the years fly. Children are miracles from God, but—like many of God’s greatest miracles—they are in danger of being overlooked and neglected.
On Sunday I taught Gospel Doctrine and we focused on the murmurings of Laman and Lemuel in chapters 16 – 18. For the first time, I noticed a very definite pattern in the slow hardening of the hearts. At first, in chapter 16, all it took was a lecture from Nephi to bring them to repentance. Later, when Nephi’s bow broke, it took the indirect voice of the Lord (through the Liahona) to bring them to their sesnse. Later, when Ishmael died, the voice of the Lord directly was required. Finally, when Nephi started to build a ship, it took a threat of physical violence to humble them. The problem wasn’t that Laman and Lemuel murmured. Everyone murmurs. It’s that their hearts grew harder with every passing trial.
But when the penultimate confrontation came it wasn’t a result of trial or tribulation. The argument that prompted Laman and Lemuel to tie Nephi to the mast of their ship for days wasn’t the result of hardship. The spark that started that fire happened when things were going well. The ship was built, the supplies were loaded, the journey was easy, and there was no hard work to do. And that was when the greatest crisis erupted. Which explains why Elder Tuttle writes:
The trials through which today’s young people are passing—ease and luxury—may be the most severe test of any age. Brothers and sisters, stay close to your own! Guide them safely! These are perilous times. Give increased attention. Give increased effort.
You want a simple example of this? Screen-time is the easiest. Don’t get me wrong, we’re not one of those families with no TV and no screens. My wife is getting her PhD in computer science and my job is in software development. My kids are expert Minecraft players and I enjoy playing Castle Crashers with them. We’ve watched Avatar: The Last Airbender all the way through twice and started it a third time. So screens can be—and are—a part of this family. But they’re also perilous. The older your kids get, the easier it is to tell them to leave you alone and have them actually do it. An infant can’t leave you alone. A toddler can sometimes, but only for a few minutes. But a 9-year old is perfectly capable of entertaining him or herself for a few hours or more. Throw in a TV or a video game console or an iPhone and you could—if you wanted—basically live in the same house as your children and never really interact with them.
That is the peril—for them and for you—of “ease and luxury.” As a parent, I have learned that the greatest tragedy is not that your kids don’t listen to you. It’s that they do. If they hear “I’m busy” often enough, or “Daddy doesn’t have time” frequently enough, the message does sink in, and then there’s no way to take it back.
These are indeed perilous times. Growth is always risky. It is always perilous as your children grow more independent and begin to take on more and more freedom for themselves. But that ordinary course of getting older is even more perilous in our society, which makes it so easy to curate digital connections and so easy to forget the flesh-and-blood variety.
And finally there is this:
The responsibility rests on the family to solve our social problems. Youth search for security. They search for answers to be found only in a good home. No national or international treaty can bring peace. Not in legislative halls nor judicial courts will our problems be solved. From the hearthstones of the homes will come the answers to our problems. On the principles taught by the Savior, happiness and peace will come to families. In the home youth will receive strength to find happiness.
As I wrote about last week, I believe this to be entirely literal. Laws and governments are a superficial veneer on society. They are important, but they are not essential. What matters more than formal institutions are the informal ones: friendships, associations, churches, clubs and—far, far and away the most important—families. This is born out be reams of social science research (another topic we cover at Difficult Run, especially Walker Wright) which underscores the empirically validated truth that stable families are the most important ingredient for stable, prosperous, safe, flourishing, happy societies. It’s not rhetoric and it’s not exaggeration. It’s the truth: the family is the one and only solution to our deepest social problems.
The world doesn’t believe this. “The world is full of foolish schemes.” Many of these schemes are attempts to root a stable society in some foundation other than families. They will not work, and—to the extent that they lead people to turn their attention away from the life-long endeavor of nurturing families—they will lead to unhappiness and suffering.
What is wanted, first and foremost, is true motherhood and true fatherhood. And, as Elder Tuttle writes, we must “face the fact that true fatherhood and true motherhood are fast disappearing.”
He doesn’t spend as much time talking about what those concepts mean. I think the world continues to have a relatively robust account of what true motherhood is about. We continue to understand, to a greater degree than with fatherhood, the dignity and importance of mothers who nourish, protect and care for their children. But fathers—especially if you judge by the bungling, incompetent depictions in popular television—are viewed more and more as auxiliary and disposable. In contrast, Elder Tuttle describes true fatherhood this way:
Fatherhood is a relationship of love and understanding. It is strength and manliness and honor. It is power and action. It is counsel and instruction. Fatherhood is to be one with your own. It is authority and example.
The line that speaks the most to me there is that “Fatherhood is to be one with your own.” I haven’t finished processing it, but it continues to resonate long after I first read it, a bell reverberating on and on in my heart, and calling attention to a message I haven’t fully received yet.
I have learned, in my marriage and in my parenting, that the messages I’ve been taught by the world about being a husband and a father range from irrelevant to insidious. I’m still learning to sift the true meaning of fatherhood from the surrounding chaff. I don’t have it all figured out, but talks like this encourage me to keep going and help guide me along my way.
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Here are the other posts from the General Conference Odyssey this week:
This is part of the General Conference Odyssey.
In Michael Shermer’s book The Moral Arc, he has a section in which he discusses restorative justice vs. retributive justice. Retributive justice is a “theory of justice that considers proportionate punishment to be the most effective means of deterring crime…” Restorative (or reparative) justice is a theory in which the “perpetrator…apologizes for the crime; attempts to set to rights the situation; and, ideally, initiates or restores good relations with the victim” (pg. 371). The notion of rehabilitation over punishment is gaining momentum among prison reform movements. One example is the Insight Prison Project, a program that “aims to help incarcerated men learn new emotional skills and correct problem behaviors in order to succeed in and out of prison. IPP offers a multipronged approach to personal transformation, including classes in violence prevention, yoga, and mindfulness. It also brings victims and survivors together with inmates, so that the men can be exposed to the human impact of the types of crimes they’ve committed. 
The process doesn’t just help the inmates to grow. It can also help the survivors.” Prisoners go through “an intensive, yearlong program designed to help them open up, learn to trust each other, and take greater responsibility for the harm they’ve caused. They explored how crime impacts everyone—not just the direct victims, but the victims’ spouses, children, parents, and communities—while developing empathy for victims through directed exercises. They also learned about the effects of childhood trauma and abuse and how these experiences may have impacted their personal psychology, all the while developing skills like emotional regulation and anger/stress management.” In 1997, “the San Francisco County Sheriff’s Department ordered Washington into a jail program called RSVP: Resolve to Stop the Violence Project. In his first week there he met a former skinhead, Aaron Moscovitz, who had already undergone a dramatic transformation through the program. Moscovitz went from perpetrating violent hate crimes to becoming a public speaker against violence. If the program could take violent racists like Moscovitz and return them to society reformed and peaceful, Washington was curious about what the program could do for him.” The exciting part is that this kind of approach actually works: a 2013 meta-analysis found that restorative justice programs were more cost-effective, led to a decrease in post-release recidivism, and greater victim satisfaction.
I think restorative justice is an excellent way to describe Victor Brown’s talk in the October 1971 Conference. He begins,
In June of this year I was invited to attend a graduation exercise conducted by the LDS Institute of Religion and Church Social Services Department held at the Utah State Prison. Seventeen men received certificates of award: nine received their first-year certificates, five their second-year, and three their third. Twenty-four others had participated in religion classes but did not quite qualify for certificates.
As I recall, only two had been released from prison and had returned that evening to receive their certificates. All of the others were inmates. Many of them were not members of the Church.
One would hardly expect in the environment of the prison to hear the beautiful, stirring hymns “I Need Thee Every Hour” and “Sweet Hour of Prayer.” They were sung by two choruses composed of white and black prisoners.
Men dressed in prison uniforms offered humble, sincere prayers to God, expressing gratitude for their blessings and for the knowledge they now have of his gospel. Several stood at the pulpit and testified that they know God lives, and expressed gratitude for his goodness to them. May I tell you of just two of these men—men whose lives were seriously out of step with society; men with internal, personal problems that really are not much different from those of many who have never been in prison.
One prisoner Brown describes gave up coffee and smoking, “became involved in the various religious programs sponsored by the Church social service agency,” and felt loved “as a son” by his home teachers, “something he had never experienced in his life, even as a little boy.” And this was only “[a]fter a few weeks of exposure to the program of the Church specially designed for prison life…” Another inmate “had some particularly wonderful home teachers who occasionally brought their own children to the prison to have family home evening with him. The children consider Ed as an older brother.” Following his release, he was invited to speak at the program’s graduation service. He held up a piece of paper for the audience to see and said, “You probably can’t read this, but this is the most important document in my life. This is my baptismal recommend that will permit me to be baptized next Thursday.” He was baptized. “After his confirmation, he walked over to a corner of the room where he could be alone and wept. He wept even more when he was ordained a deacon in the Aaronic Priesthood.”
Brown explains,
Certainly these young men were faced with serious problems. Yes, they had lost their physical freedom by being confined in jail, but this was not the basic problem. Even more serious was the lack of purpose in their lives. They had no place to go. They were lost. Life had no meaning. They had no idea why they were here on earth or where they were going.
Release from the prison would not begin to solve their most urgent problems; and yet, in the environment of prison, they found the release that could ultimately make them truly free men. They found their Savior, Jesus Christ, and his gospel.
And this gospel was brought to them by others. May we seek to be more Christian not only to those whom we think deserve it, but to those who may actually need it more:
I was in prison, and ye came unto me…Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me (Matt. 25:36, 40).
Other Noteworthy Quotes & Insights:
“When the foundation [of the Salt Lake temple] was being laid, we are told that it was sixteen feet wide, and at one time President Brigham Young came and saw the workmen throwing in chipped granite. He made them take it out and put in those great granite blocks with this explanation: “We are building this temple to stand through the millennium.” Isn’t that a good thought? Each one of us ought to want to build our lives and help our families to build their lives so that we can stand through the millennium.”
I was tempted to write about Tuttle’s talk and the modern gospel of busyness:
“Note again the admonition [of D&C 121:34-35]: “their hearts are set so much upon the things of this world”—not on the things of the spirit. And they “aspire to the honors of men,” rather than seeking approval of God. Have we sought “so much” for material things while missing, even ignoring, the things of God? The beauty of nature at this or any other season goes unseen and unappreciated. Our lives are ruled by a schedule and appointments while the Christian acts of kindness wait—ofttimes in vain.”
“The trials through which today’s young people are passing—ease and luxury—may be the most severe test of any age.”
“The responsibility rests on the family to solve our social problems. Youth search for security. They search for answers to be found only in a good home. No national or international treaty can bring peace. Not in legislative halls nor judicial courts will our problems be solved. From the hearthstones of the homes will come the answers to our problems. On the principles taught by the Savior, happiness and peace will come to families. In the home youth will receive strength to find happiness.”[ref]This is extremely important, especially when one considers Brown’s talk above.[/ref]
“[A] home where the accumulation of worldly goods has become so important…is a poor place to teach the worth of a human being in terms of love and sacrifice.”[ref]The knock against working mothers in the full quote is, in my view, outdated but forgivable given the overall point.[/ref]
The other day I was eating lunch with a friend and we started talking about the idea of perfection and how we understand it and approach it within our culture. He believed it to be impossible to be perfect, but that it is possible to be perfect in regards to small and simple things.
I conceded his point, agreeing that yes, there are some things that can either be definitively done or left undone. For example, I could attend all three long hours of church (which would be quite a feat) every Sunday of every week and accomplish perfect attendance. I have now been perfect at a small task.
So I agree that there are some things that can simply be checked off – achieved or omitted. But I believe that perfection is far more intricate and goes beyond the mere scope of completing a task with wonderful consistency. I believe perfection cannot be found except as a product of an accumulation of many things – virtues and connections with those around us. And ultimately, perfection isn’t about avoiding sin, but rather, I think, that holiness and perfection deal more with that which we include in our lives opposed to that which we exclude from them. Avoiding sin can be done by any lump on a log. It bespeaks safety, inaction, timidity, even cowardice in the face of life’s challenges. The gospel invites us to expand, not contract, our realm of experience and knowledge. The atonement hasn’t been given to only be used in cases of dire emergency like a “get me out of jail card”, rather the atonement has been given to consistently and constantly give us life and draw us closer to Christ AND our fellow man. It is to be used every day to alleviate the suffering from sin and to help us gain knowledge and, even more importantly, compassion and love. From the parable given by the Savior in Luke chapter 7, we learn that he who is forgiven much feels an even deeper love for the Savior than he who has been forgiven less. It is critical, I think, to recognize that the woman is forgiven because “she loved much”.
However, it is important to juxtapose this parable with that of the man who was forgiven a great debt by his king in Matthew 18. In this story we do not see an outpouring of love following forgiveness, but rather anger as the forgiven man refuses to excuse the meager debts of those around him. Sin by itself is never beneficial – but sin accompanied by the repentance and the healing grace of the atonement leads to more compassion and, what one friend taught me, “mercy of the fallen”.
Recently I learned a saying with which I wholeheartedly agree: the path to happiness is not found in the path of avoiding unhappiness. I believe that just as trials and sadness are necessary precursors for joy, so is sin a precursor for perfection. Sin teaches us by experience the beauty of purity, cleanliness, and being whole. Through sin we learn how beautiful our Savior’s atonement truly is – that we, despite however wretched we may be (we are all sinners), can truly be made whole after having experienced such pain of heart and soul. In that space of forgiveness, we in turn learn to forgive and to love. In essence, we cheat ourselves if we simply try to avoid sin, but we perfect ourselves when we seek to incorporate godliness and learn better how to respond to the inevitable sin in our lives.
And that’s the point – whatever it is we endeavor or seek to do, we will be found wanting in some regard. No matter how much we do or how well we perform, we can’t earn heaven. Heaven is a place reserved for those of a particular divine nature and the tasks we have been given serve as possible catalysts or stepping stones to help shape us into such a person which I feel is shown in the Lord’s statement in D&C 29, “I say unto you that all things unto me are spiritual, and not at any time have I given unto you a law which was temporal.” I believe those who will be best prepared in the heavens to come are not necessarily those who lived a life more devoid of sin than the other, but rather those who have learned best how to repent.
There’s a strange perverted obsession with the notion of perfection and it eats away at many of us as well as a syndrome of “sin-aversion” (but that’s a topic for another time). If not careful, such a desire to be “perfect” can lead to a sense of entitlement which one might infer from the hymn “Come, Come ye Saint” when it says, “Why should we think to earn a great reward if we now shun the fight?” In “The Great Divorce”, C.S. Lewis talks of the wonderful mercy that we are not given that which we rightfully deserve – we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of our God and have earned hell for ourselves. Yet, despite our wickedness before Him who is most pure, we are offered mercy and forgiveness upon the condition of change and repentance – sin cannot stand in the presence of God, but repentant sinners can.
It is my wish that we would seek less to become perfect and focus more on improving ourselves – our relationships with our families, friends, and communities. Just as it says in D&C 128:18, “we without them cannot be made perfect; neither can they without us be made perfect”. I don’t believe this is speaking solely in reference to our deceased, but to the relationships of the whole human family. That isn’t to say we should simply give up on the goal of perfection – but that perfection itself shouldn’t be the goal, rather, better emulating the life of Christ and His endless charity in all facets of our lives.
Now I wish to speak plainly and clearly so as not to be misunderstood. Perfection does not include sin – in the words of C.S. Lewis there can be no compromise for hell in heaven. But I think too much of our mental capacity is spent on avoiding and distancing ourselves from certain elements of this world which causes us, inextricably, to also distance ourselves from our loved ones who might be struggling, or cause others to distance themselves from us when we are struggling.
Hong Zicheng said within the Ts’ai Ken T’an, “Soil that is dirty grows the countless things. Water that is pure has no fish”. CS Lewis writes, “There is but one good; that is God. Everything else is good when it looks to him and bad when it turns from him”. Perfection isn’t found in the absence of sin, but the seeds of perfection are found in the presence of compassion and mercy which have stemmed from sin and steered us further on to love and forgive those who will one day compose our heavenly family.
This is part of the General Conference Odyssey.
I kept thinking of the above research as I was reading through Mark E. Peterson’s October 1971 talk on honesty. What is so troubling about Dan Ariely’s research is the fact that most people are dishonest in small, incremental ways, yet still think of themselves as good, honest people. As Peterson states, “Honesty is a principle of salvation in the kingdom of God. Without it there can be no salvation. Just as no man or woman can be saved without baptism, so no one can be saved without honesty. As we cannot advance in the kingdom of heaven without a resurrection, so we cannot move into celestial realms without honesty. As God condemns immorality, so he denounces hypocrisy, which is one of the worst forms of dishonesty.” The list he provides next is thought-provoking:
Honesty is an act of vulnerability, humility, and love. According to Peterson, “Dishonesty is directly related to selfishness, which is its origin and source. Selfishness is at the root of nearly all the disorders that afflict us, and man’s inhumanity to man continues to make countless thousands mourn. If all mankind were honest, we could have heaven here on earth. We would have no need for armies or navies, nor even a policeman in the smallest community, for there would be no crime, no invasion of other people’s rights, no violence of one person against another. There would be no grounds for divorce, nor would we have errant husbands or unfaithful wives. Conflict between children and parents would disappear, and juvenile delinquency would come to an end.” Think about the list above. While there is greed and enmity involved, there is also shame and disconnection. How many cheat in school or work out of fear of not being enough? How many gossip with others in an attempt to create connection, no matter how counterfeit? How many crimes are committed in hopes of gaining acceptance, through status and the like? The sad thing is that dishonesty erodes trust and trust is vital to deep, lasting relationships. This is why no one is saved without honesty because no one is saved in isolation. Dishonesty is a form of betrayal. Psychologist John Gottman, one of the foremost experts on relationships and marriage, has emphasized the importance of trust in relationships. He uses the acronym ATTUNE:
He shares a personal story to demonstrate what he means:
But how do you build trust? What I’ve found through research is that trust is built in very small moments, which I call “sliding door” moments, after the movie Sliding Doors. In any interaction, there is a possibility of connecting with your partner or turning away from your partner. Let me give you an example of that from my own relationship. One night, I really wanted to finish a mystery novel. I thought I knew who the killer was, but I was anxious to find out. At one point in the night, I put the novel on my bedside and walked into the bathroom.As I passed the mirror, I saw my wife’s face in the reflection, and she looked sad, brushing her hair. There was a sliding door moment. I had a choice. I could sneak out of the bathroom and think, “I don’t want to deal with her sadness tonight, I want to read my novel.” But instead, because I’m a sensitive researcher of relationships, I decided to go into the bathroom. I took the brush from her hair and asked, “What’s the matter, baby?” And she told me why she was sad. Now, at that moment, I was building trust; I was there for her. I was connecting with her rather than choosing to think only about what I wanted. These are the moments, we’ve discovered, that build trust. One such moment is not that important, but if you’re always choosing to turn away, then trust erodes in a relationship—very gradually, very slowly…By contrast, the atom of betrayal is not just turning away—not just turning away from my wife’s sadness in that moment—but doing what Caryl Rusbult called a “CL-ALT,” which stands for “comparison level for alternatives.” What that means is I not only turn away from her sadness, but I think to myself, “I can do better. Who needs this crap? I’m always dealing with her negativity. I can do better.” Once you start thinking that you can do better, then you begin a cascade of not committing to the relationship; of trashing your partner instead of cherishing your partner; of building resentment rather than gratitude; of lowering your investment in the relationship; of not sacrificing for the relationship; and of escalating conflicts.
To ignore his wife’s sadness and avert his eyes would not have been a lack of awareness, but an act of dishonesty. It is within these small moments that we lie the most and thus miss out on the chance for connection. To love and reach out is one of the most vulnerable and honest things you can do. “In the most emphatic and urgent meaning of the word,” write Terryl and Fiona Givens, “love reveals truth. It does not create the impression of truth; love does not merely endow something with a subjective truth–love is the only position or emotional disposition from which we become fully aware of the already present reality of the other person as more than a mere object among other objects in a crowded universe. Love alone reveals the full reality and value of the other person.”[ref]Terryl and Fiona Givens, The Crucible of Doubt: Reflections on the Quest for Faith (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2014), 16-17.[/ref] Peterson notes that Christ “knows that the sinful life is the costly and miserable life, and that wickedness never was happiness. He invites us to bear a lighter burden, one of joy, relief, and deep satisfaction[.]”
And this joy, relief, and satisfaction comes through honest, vulnerable, loving relationships.
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Here are the rest of the blog posts for the General Conference Odyssey this week.
This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.
One scripture has been on my mind more than any other over the last several years. That scripture is Alma 31:5. This takes place just after the story of Korihor (who met his end in Alma 30) and successive Lamanite invasions led by Amalekites (in Alma 25 and 27-28). No sooner have the Nephites survived that war, then then apostate Zoramites threaten to lead the Lamanites into starting a new one. So it is a time period of great uncertainty and danger for the Nephite people, with divisive threats inside their lands and betrayal and invasion lurking on the borders. This would have been a dark, dangerous, and confusing time.
This is how Alma reacts to the impending crisis:
And now, as the preaching of the word had a great tendency to lead the people to do that which was just—yea, it had had more powerful effect upon the minds of the people than the sword, or anything else, which had happened unto them—therefore Alma thought it was expedient that they should try the virtue of the word of God.[ref]Alma 31:5[/ref]
The idea that the “preaching of the word” could have such an impact was one of those things I just had to take on faith when I read the Book of Mormon as a young man. To me, it seemed that the arc of history was largely dominated by soldiers and spies, by politicians and inventors. That even seemed to be the message of the Book of Mormon at first, with Captain Moroni’s brilliant strategies and defensive innovations.
The longer I’ve read, however, and the more I’ve lived I realize how superficial that perspective is. All of the things that we usually pay attention to—the wording of laws, the exact structure of government, specific inventions, or individual leaders—none of them matter compared to the sum total of a million individual, every-day decisions by ordinary people. We just don’t like to pay attention to that because it’s almost impossible to measure, quantify, or incorporate into formal models and theories. But in the long run, I believe that’s what really matters. And so the biggest influence on the course of nations and cultures is not found in momentous events, but in the accumulation of the lives of the individuals who make up those nations and societies. And those lives are themselves most heavily influenced by what people believe in. What they want. What they hope for. What they work for. And that is where the “preaching of the word” has such a profound impact.
It’s something to keep in mind as we head into another contentious election season. I am not saying that it doesn’t matter who is president, but I am saying that the character of the voters in the years leading up to an election have a much, much greater impact on the nation than the outcome of any particular vote.
This was all brought to mind in reading Elder Mark E. Peterson’s talk, Honesty, a Principle of Salvation. He begins by making a claim I have never heard before:
Honesty is a principle of salvation in the kingdom of God. Without it there can be no salvation. Just as no man or woman can be saved without baptism, so no one can be saved without honesty.
He then goes on to list all the ways in which dishonesty, that relatively minor offense (at least, that’s how we often think of it relative to murder or rape or even theft) leads to huge cumulative impacts: drug addiction, fornication, fraud, infidelity, theft, all come down to dishonest. Even the generation gap—a frequent topic in these talks—comes from “the light of the child—and too often also the parent.” An individual lie may indeed be a small thing, but in the end, “to resort to dishonest practices is to apostatize from the Christian way of life.”
The most important line in the talk, for me, is one that doesn’t at first seem connected to honesty. Elder Peterson says that “if we are interested in the gospel in the least degree, we should live it wholeheartedly.” Of course there is a connection. What we say we care about should mesh with what we actually care about. What we say and believe with what we do. And this, too, is a kind of honesty, although it often goes by the expression “integrity” as well.
And that is a message that resonates deeply with me. I’ve started two personal blogs in my life, one in 2006 and then this one as a reboot in 2012. In both cases, one of my first blog posts was a recap of that very idea: pursuing integrity—honesty—between what we think we care about and what we actually care about, between what we want to be and what we actually are. Here’s the 2012 version, if you’re curious: Mind the Gaps.
These are small things. An individual lie in a person’s entire life, an individual honest person in a whole society, but the big things—the life, the society—aren’t made of anything else.
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Here are the rest of the blog posts for the General Conference Odyssey this week.
Not long ago, I found myself asking the same questions over and over, “Do other people think that too?”
For a long time, I believed that all those encompassed under the cloak of Mormonism believed the same thing. I felt the Church was unanimous in what it believed – that the leaders of the church were there to tell us all what was right to believe and that all who believed merely agreed with that which was said. It was a world of right and wrong. It was a world of doctrine and non-doctrine. It was a world of things that should be said and believed, and things that shouldn’t.
It was a simple life: go to church, read my scriptures, pray to receive the answers I knew I should receive, listen to the leaders of the church so that I might better discipline my own beliefs to be in line with that which was true. Questions were welcome in theory, but if the answers weren’t readily available, questioning seemed to require too much work and was simply left for future days to come.
“Does everyone live like this?” I asked myself. “Do people still live like this? Are people happy living such a way?” I no longer felt I could live in such a manner. Questions creeped up and wouldn’t subside. I found myself not having answers to the questions I had, but I no longer wanted to wait for future days to come. I heard the same answers, but they no longer satisfied me. Was I going astray? Was I losing my testimony, my belief? I’d ask God for the answers but I didn’t seem to hear Him speak. Did I really expect to hear answers? I doubted God would speak to me to give me an answer to my confused and uncertain questions. I wrestled with my questions and the lack of answers.
In the expanse of silence my questions became more refined and more thoughtful. God has an amazing talent of knowing when to speak and when not to speak. I’ve come to believe that much of revelation comes in the process of questioning opposed to that of receiving an answer.
This isn’t to say that the answer isn’t important, but rather that the answer brings no fruit if the soil wasn’t first properly prepared. In wrestling with our questions we are forced to really formulate and solidify what we believe or think we believe. Asking questions helps us to realize that which we do not know and leaves us in a vulnerable state from which we can learn and grow – to experience a metamorphosis of faith.
It can be frightening. What changes will we experience? Where will we be left in the end? Perhaps it’d be best to remain inside our cocoon – though we see the fractured lines running across the membranes of our tenuous faith. Uncertain of what awaits on the outside or our capabilities of coping with it; maybe we can remain within our cocoon a little longer.
I believe to ask a question is to act on faith and hope. The sole purpose of asking a question is to find a reassuring response even if we might have given up that an answer will come or that a voice will be heard.
True and genuine questions release the contents of our hearts. The soul yearns to connect with something or someone so that it can once more feel tethered to something. Questions are the soul’s attempt to reconcile that which we don’t understand with that which we hope to believe, and it isn’t until we really begin to question that we can find out what it is we truly believe or hope to believe. It’s also in the question where we can find the cords which connect us all and see the hearts of those around us.
This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.
In some of my previous posts, I’ve connected the counsel of Church leaders to that of the ancient concept of eudaimonia (flourishing). Lately, I’ve been going through a couple books on the topic of virtue ethics. One of them is philosopher Julia Annas’ Intelligent Virtue, which argues that virtue can be learned as one would a skill. One can continually progress and become more dynamic in their use and application of virtue, just as they can with an acquired skill. This is not unconscious habit, but knowingly applied mastery. Given my interest in developing a theology of work that draws on studies in organizational theory and positive psychology, I was excited to see her compare the state of virtue with the concept of flow.[ref]This lecture by Yale professor Tamar Gendler is a good overview of Annas.[/ref] This virtuous state described by Annas reminded me of Christ’s Beatitudes in Matthew 5. As one pair of biblical scholars explains, “[W]e often interpret [Matt. 5:9] to mean, “If you are a peacemaker, then God will bless you.” But this isn’t what Jesus meant. Jesus meant, “if you are a peacemaker, then you are in your happy place.” It just doesn’t work well in English.” This is because “happy sounds trite…”[ref]E. Randolph Richards, Brandon J. O’Brien, Misreading Scripture with Western Eyes: Removing Cultural Blinders to Better Understand the Bible (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2012), 75.[/ref] The Greek makarios conveyed much more than a mere psychological state: “In the wider Greek world that sets the background for biblical use makar- was used of the gods, who were above all the vicissitudes of life, of the dead, who had left it all behind, and of people who were thought to be in a good situation and were deemed to have reason for being happy: wealthy, having family, being wise or famous or an honored citizen, and so on.”[ref]John Nolland, “Blessing and Woe,” in Dictionary of Jesus and the Gospels, ed. Joel B. Green, Jeannine K. Brown, Nicholas Perrin, 2nd ed. (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 2013), 87.[/ref] In essence, one could say that makarios was the divine life. The idea of living the divine life–of flourishing–through the practice of virtue is something that pops up again and again throughout this session.[ref]The word “virtue” isn’t employed, but the notion is there.[/ref]
Richard L. Evans starts it off by explaining that far from needing to be “rewritten,” the commandments need to be “reread.” The reason for this is because “the experience of the ages has proved the need for them, and has proved what happens if they are ignored.” According to Evans, the commandments are for our benefit. “Essentially,” he says, “this is what the gospel is: counsel from a loving Father who says to his children, “You have limitless, everlasting possibilities. You also have your freedom. It’s up to you how you use it. This is what you can become if you take my advice—and this is what will happen if you don’t. The choice is yours.”” Evans declares that “there is a law of compensation that is built into life,” one that echoes the words of Alma: “…the meaning of the word restoration is to bring back again evil for evil, or carnal for carnal, or devilish for devilish—good for that which is good; righteous for that which is righteous; just for that which is just; merciful for that which is merciful” (Alma 41:13). Obedience for the sake of obedience is not inherently virtuous. Embracing and doing “the good” because it is good is what brings about more good. Obeying the commandments is practicing the skill of virtue.
ElRay L. Christiansen continues this trend by noting, “Man’s progress is to a great degree dependent upon his willingness to remain steadfast and immovable, especially when faced with opposition and adversity.” To choose virtue in all situations leads one to become truly virtuous and obtain “that which is most precious and desirable—peace, liberty, and salvation” (italics mine). The lack of virtue leads to “crime and contention” and “crises and violence.” It is likely a similar recognition that led Bernard P. Brockbank to say, “The Lord personally gave commandments that would help mankind to grow and develop his Godlike attributes.” The commandments (specifically the Ten in Brockbank’s talk) are not arbitrary. Rather, they are “a basic part of God’s way of life and a basic part of the gospel of the kingdom.” And what is the foundation for God’s way of life? According to Milton R. Hunter, “The central theme and the most dynamic force of the gospel of Jesus Christ is love.” This is because ” [o]ur Eternal Father and his Only Begotten Son both have intense, comprehensive, and full love for us. They have much greater intelligence and understanding than we have, and so their feelings of love go far beyond our capabilities to love. The attribute of love is so highly developed in these divine Beings that the scriptures state: “God is love.” (1 John 4:16.) In fact, Deity’s transcendent love is above and beyond our deepest feelings and keenest conception. At times of great spiritual experience when we feel an abundance of the Spirit, we have a greater realization of the magnitude of God’s love.” Quoting President David O. McKay, he states, “Homes are made permanent through love.” (Pathways to Happiness [Bookcraft], p. 114.)” This is because “[l]ove should also characterize the center of the family life. Each child should be made to feel at all times by his parents that he is of great importance in the family. Parents should express their love to their children and show them in numerous ways that they love them dearly. Then the Spirit of the Lord will reside in the home. The family will be love-centered and thereby God-centered. The children in turn will reciprocate the love to the parents and strive to please them.” As I pointed out in a previous post, “Family life is the context in which the good life is found.”
Finally, S. Dilworth Young gives us an idea of the spill-over effect of this virtuous living:
The revelations given to Joseph Smith on this subject are numerous and were among the early ones. To care for the poor is one of the first and early obligations. To help the needy and those who mourn follows close behind. All of us have some time, but those who are not given great responsibility in the organizations have more time to seek out the poor, needy, and helpless. And this help is badly needed. All about us are those in need of encouragement, assistance, and help—help of a kind we can all give, not money, but time and attention and personal encouragement, especially to those who must bear great responsibility for loved ones and who cannot pass it to others for the simple reason there are no others to whom to pass it.
He continues, “There are many lonely people, people whose loneliness is hidden. We need to seek them out and relieve them. There are those who feel they are not accepted, who need to be built up in spirit and helped to find themselves.” We flourish as we establish connections with each other, building quality relationships. The commandments are pro-social in nature. They are meant to build Zion, to establish families, and make us of “one heart and one mind” (Moses 7:18).
Let’s start with practicing them.[ref]I left out a couple talks. Hartman Rector, Jr.’s wasn’t bad. It was on sacrifice, but I didn’t have much to say about it. Howard W. Hunter’s talk seemed to reduce the doctrine of redemption for the dead to rituals for the sake of rituals. Because reasons.[/ref]
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The other posts from this week’s installment of the General Conference Odyssey are:
This post is part of the General Conference Odyssey.
This week we’re covering the Friday afternoon session of the October 1971 General Conference, and there is one talk that stood out to me: Should the Commandments Be Rewritten? by Elder Richard L. Evans.[ref]Spoiler alert: the answer is no.[/ref]
The title of the talk is stern, and the opening paragraph is blunt:
Perhaps I could begin with an interesting question posed recently and an equally interesting answer. The question was, “Don’t you think the commandments should be rewritten?” The answer was, “No, they should be reread.”
It’s easy and it’s tempting to write off a talk that opens like this as a fossil of an older, more black-and-white time. Just obey. Stop thinking. Right?
Well, no. Absolutely not. What this talk conveys–and what is probably the number 1 lesson for me in going through General Conference talks written before I was born–is that they reward the person who comes with an attitude of humility and a thirst to learn. Not only that, but they quickly, consistently, and emphatically confound the stereotypes. Consider Elder Evan’s words from just a couple of paragraphs further into the talk:
Some things the commandments say thou shalt not do, and if that is what they say, that’s what they mean, and there’s a reason for it.
This paragraph starts out on a straight railroad track headed directly to Divine Command Theory Central. Divine command theory is “a meta-ethical theory which proposes that an action’s status as morally good is equivalent to whether it is commanded by God.”[ref]Wikipedia[/ref] In simpler terms: DCT is the idea that if we ask God, “But why?” he will respond with just “Because I said so.” And that’s all there is to it.
Because Elder Evans’ talk has a stern tone, you might think that this is where he’s headed. But at the last moment, Elder Evans suddenly veers off in a completely different direction. We aren’t supposed to keep the commandments just because God says so. No, “there’s a reason for [them].” Just a couple of paragraphs later, he elaborates:
Essentially this is what the gospel is: counsel from a loving Father who says to his children, “You have limitless, everlasting possibilities. You also have your freedom. It’s up to you how you use it. This is what you can become if you take my advice—and this is what will happen if you don’t. The choice is yours.”
Now, let me make a quick digression. The quote from LDS.org actually says “a living Father” instead of “a loving Father.” I was pretty sure that was wrong. “Loving” makes a lot more sense than “living.” So I cued up the video and watched. First of all: I was right. Elder Evans is talking about a loving father. Secondly: hearing him read the talk was also incredibly eye opening for me.
We all know, as denizens of the Internet, that tone is hard to convey in text. We’ve all had experiences where we got into trouble because we tried to make a joke online and it was taken the wrong way, or because someone said something that seemed rude or unkind to us, only to realize later that they had been trying to be playful. The same thing is going on here. I can’t help but think of Nephi writing,
I, Nephi, cannot write all the things which were taught among my people; neither am I mighty in writing, like unto speaking; for when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men.[ref]2 Nephi 33:1[/ref]
Nephi understood the difference between the spoken word and the written word, and he well understood the limitations of writing. One of those limitations is tone.
If I’d been listening to Elder Evans’ talk all along–instead of just reading the text–I would have realized much sooner that his dogged emphasis on obedience was not born of an authoritarian disposition but out of a sense of urgent concern. In this sense, Elder Evans is modeling our Father. In that case, too, commands are not about bossing underlings around. They are about beseeching wayward, recalcitrant, stubborn, and (quite frankly) bumbling and incompetent children to be careful.
As I continue to read these talks, I am humbled again and again to find that a lot of the things that I have grumbled about in the past “Why aren’t the General Authorities more clear about X?” or “Why don’t they just come out and say Y?” are actually there, plain as day, in talks that I could have easily read any time. It is, quite frankly, a little humiliating. In a good way.
The first is the clear dismissal of DCT in favor of moral realism. Here’s another one, from this talk: sometimes I’m frustrated that the General Authorities aren’t more clear about the need for members to be autonomous and independent in our obedience. To figure things out on our own. To stop depending so much on the leaders. And yet here is Elder Evans:
The Lord expects us to use wisdom and common sense and not quibble about what obviously isn’t good for the body or mind or spirit or morals of man.
Also, this is a talk where Elder Evans quotes from Emerson, Cromwell, and Ruskin. Clearly, when Elder Evans said, “I have a great respect for scholarship, for education and research, for academic excellence, and for the magnificent accomplishments of sincere and searching men,” he meant it. He knew what he was talking about. And so clearly, when he followed that up with, “But I also have great respect for the word of God, and his prophets, and life’s purpose; and it comes to a question of where to place our trust,” I should pay attention.
So that’s my experience with the General Conference Odyssey thus far in a nutshell: I’m embarrassed that I didn’t start reading these much earlier, and incredibly grateful that I finally have the opportunity to do so now. I won’t have time, unfortunately, to watch the videos for all the talks. I read much, much faster than the talks are given. But, in addition to learning that I have a tendency to misread the tone, this also makes me more grateful that in just a couple of months I’ll be able to listen to the talks live.
Yes, that’s right. It’s January, and I’m actively looking forward to General Conference. And not just because I get to stay home. No, I’m actually impatient to have a chance to listen to the talks. That’s a really, really big shift in my approach. I’m honestly kind of shocked at how much of a change this project has already had on me, and I’m as excited as ever to see what the next decade brings.
Now, here are some other quotes from some of the rest of the talks given during this session.
The Ten Commandments (Elder Bernard P. Brockbank)
“Respect for father and mother is respect for your own birth and life.”
“By Love, Serve One Another” (Elder S. Dilworth Young)
“There are many lonely people, people whose loneliness is hidden. We need to seek them out and relieve them.”
The reason this struck me so forcefully is that it reminds me of some of the most important research I’ve ever learned about: Adverse Childhood Experiences. Read this article to see more about that topic, and how true it is that there are so many people–friends and neighbors–laboring under the burdens of invisible tragedy. This whole talk was a really beautiful sermon on service.
The Vitality of Love (Elder Milton R. Hunter)
“Each child should be made to feel at all times by his parents that he is of great importance in the family.”
Definitely something for me to keep in mind in my own home. My children are in sort of the childhood sweet-spot. They’re old enough to be mostly self-sufficient, but they are still young enough to hold my hand now and then in public. It’s a treacherous time, however, because now that they don’t literally require supervision, it’s tempting to turn away too often. And I know if I do that that, in the blink of an eye, the window of opportunity will be gone and they will be teenage strangers living in my house. And so I appreciate–deeply and truly–every single reminder I get to focus my energies consciously and deliberately on being a more present parent. It’s not just a duty to be there for my kids. It’s one of life’s greatest blessings.
Which, if you think of it, is a great model for all commandments. They’re not really obligations. They’re stepping-stone to peace, happiness, love, and safety.
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Here are the rest of the blog posts in this iteration of the General Conference Odyssey.
Kelsey Hazzard, president of Secular Pro-Life, an organization that promotes a pro-life stance based on science, has a excellent piece at Opposing Views about the religious tone of many abortion advocates. Hazzard discusses how this “magical thinking” was the basis of the Roe v. Wade decision and is a current pro-choicers are happy to ride, even if they are stereotypically the kind of people who would promote science first, as long as the result is more pro-choicers and more abortions.
Indeed, magical thinking is embedded in Roe v. Wade itself. The majority opinion discusses a variety of views concerning when human life begins… The notion that science is just one possible approach among many is a hallmark of magical thinking. The consensus of modern embryologists, and the beliefs of a civilization that thrived a millennium before the invention of the sonogram, are not equally valid. That the Supreme Court of the United States pretended that they were, and that such a farce remains good law more than forty years later, is an embarrassment to our legal system.
Check out the full piece here.