Togetherness

I said last week that we would get back to earthquakes this week, but I suspect that the majority of my readers for this blog are LDS, and thus focusing on Conference this weekend. It has certainly affected my schedule. So, here is a thought via Conference and building on some of my recent reading that will lead us nicely into the earthquake section.

When they keep going back and forth between Oregon and Japan in "Unprepared", it is not just to show us how devastating an earthquake and tsunami can be (though it can be pretty effective for that) but also to show us the benefits of preparing in advance. There is a lot of mitigation that can be done.

I was talking with a friend Thursday night after watching part of the special about how much can be done, and she pointed out how a lot of the things that could have been done already and were suggested are not being done because no one wants to pay for it. Yes, lots of areas are cash-strapped, but there is also an issue with our rugged individualistic history of not wanting to give anyone else handouts, even if it is something that would be better for society.

I am also currently reading The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, by Richard G. Williamson and Kate Pickett. The book goes through various studies and shows that for pretty much all measurements of quality of life and social ills, the societies that are more equal have it better across the board. In a country with high inequality the rich are healthier than the poor, and the poor in the more equal society have a higher level of benefit than the rich, but even the rich in the more equal society do better.

That shouldn't be at all surprising, really, and I am sure I will get back to it, but it makes it very unsurprising to find that Japan is one of the most equal societies, and also the one that is so capable of doing advance preparations for earthquakes that not only save lives during the earthquake but improve things after. They're not perfect, but when our megaquake comes we are going to want their level of preparation.

My thought from conference is that when we worry about temptation and corruption, we tend to think about sexual sin and Word of Wisdom issues, and probably most of us are past that. Things happen, but if you are a stable adult who has been living the Word of Wisdom and Law of Chastity for life, chances are good that you we be able to keep that up. There are strong components of habit for them, and to get where they are real temptations several other things would probably have to happen first.

This may not be true for your teenage children, but helping them build a relationship with God and understand the values of those laws will be more beneficial for them than limiting their contact with non-members, which is often a temptation.

That's the temptation I want to get to. There are commandments that focus on purity, and they are important, but we should be easily able to see when we are breaking them.

There are more commandments that focus on charity, and there are many scriptures reminding us how important it is, but letting our hearts get hard is easy to miss. Just the process of hardening makes us less sensitive, and the more we shut ourselves off from anyone different from us, the less opportunities we have to feel out the boundaries of our hearts.

So when the Parable of the Sheep and the Goats focuses on the service we give, including to people in prison who might reasonably be considered "undesirable", and when invited guests are not ready for the bridegroom because they lack oil, I feel it is more likely to be a problem of hard hearts.

I am especially concerned with that now because of the presidential election (something else I am sure I will get back to). A movie I saw recently showed me something of the unexpected reach of rhetoric. We have already seen attacks on real human beings inspired by Trump. He is the most blatant in his hatred, but many of the other candidates still focus on all of the other people who are problems, dividing it into "us" and "them".

This is not the way of the Gospel, and it is not the way into a better society, not the way into a more prepared one.

Yes, the earthquake section will show a specific need for the people of the Pacific Northwest to come together, but there is a need for togetherness that goes further than that, and deeper, and pursuing it can helps us develop our most essential spiritual quality.

That's something to think about. Then, when you are ready to apply that to Cascadia, look here:

http://www.opb.org/news/series/unprepared/