Knowing and choosing

As I am leading toward the need for prophets and for covenants, I want to spend a little more time on what kind of Savior we get.

I acknowledge that it is easy to hear and read about the love and the humility and submission and still come away with a dominator culture feeling. I think that is a very powerful impulse in humans -- the "natural man" if you will.

If you keep rejecting it, it does largely lose its hold over you, but there is a lot of societal reinforcement. It takes a conscious rejection, choosing that you are not going to try and control others, but that you are going to love and help them as the individuals they are, not the minions you reward for conforming to what you think they should be.

Thinking along those lines, it strikes me that there are specific things about the Savior that were easy to reject, but that are important to accept.

One is that he was not a political savior. He did not come to cast off the Roman yoke, which is what many people were hoping for.

He could have done that, just like he could have kept feeding multitudes, but that wasn't the essential thing.

Looking back, we can see so much in the scriptures -- Isaiah, sure, but not only Isaiah -- that was telling that all along. It is a lot easier to understand prophecy in retrospect. Read Revelation and then see how much you think you know about how it will unfold. 

People get interesting ideas, like maybe the "scorpions" are tanks. Even if that is a correct conclusion, that comes from knowing what a tank looks like now.

I remember once there was a space probe going up that if it crashed back to Earth would have been an environmental disaster. I thought maybe that was Wormwood, the star falling and poisoning the waters, but it didn't crash, so that wasn't it. 

That was many years ago.

I make that point because I don't want to spend a lot of time judging people who didn't understand things. The truth is, prophets are more valuable in their calls to repentance than in what they tell us about things that will happen. 

There is value in the assurance that comes with the foretelling. I am grateful to know that there will be a return, and a resurrection, and that our souls are eternal.

There is also a harm in spending time thinking that I am better than all of these past people who didn't know what was what.

Looking at others to feel superior to them is also a step in the wrong direction, not great based on knowledge, perhaps worse if basing it on physical strength or wealth.

Potentially, I might do even worse by trying to make up for my lack of those things by aligning with someone stronger and richer who thinks that might makes right or that laws are only for controlling poor people.

As much as I have felt some of these things in my heart, and as much as the scriptures are not one hundred percent clear on anything (and what comprehension or use could you have for something that told you exactly how Earth was created?) those teaching have been helpful to me in my journey.

Sometimes it is just that as I start reading one thing I get an idea about something else. Surely the Holy Ghost is an important part of that.

There are still things I would not get on my own, and there are people who would struggle getting it on their own (or not try), so those witnesses are important and needed. They come from liable mortals who have strengths along with their weaknesses, as do we. That is not only why the Holy Ghost is important but also why we all need repentance. It all goes together.

And as important as it is to have prophets, and scriptures, and to read those scriptures and to listen to the Holy Ghost, then I want to make this point too:

When we commit to the Savior (but there probably will be another post that gets into ordinances), we are committing to a Savior who promises forgiveness for sins in a way that focuses on the healing of both the sinner and the sinned against, and that involves humility and sacrifice.

We are accepting that we do not get to force our beliefs upon others, even for their own good.

We are accepting that the spiritual is more important than the temporal, even though what we can give others in terms of food and healing and time is something we will give generously.

We choose that partnership, accepting that there will be trials that refine us, but finding that there is joy and sanctification in that process.

My Redeemer Lives

In going over how perfect and logical some things are, that does not make them intuitive. 

Many years ago I remember reading Robinson Crusoe. I was surprised to find a part where Crusoe is trying to teach Friday about his religion. While the drawing toward "God" seemed fairly universal, only revelation could explain about Christ.

Certainly other religions do have stories of suffering gods, and perhaps resurrection (Dionysius and Osiris come to mind), atonement for sins is different.

I remember a unit on Egypt with a picture of the heart being weighed against a feather. I was fairly comfortable that I had done more good things than bad things, so if those were weighed against each other I would be okay, but all of my heart against a feather?

And yet, that is what we believe, that we need to be free of sin. That happens not by leading a perfect life, but by repenting, and by having your sins cleansed through the Atonement.

It takes a while to grasp the importance of it. It is easy to feel like you aren't really that terrible, which is probably true. Then you might not feel the need, which is still wrong.

It is not just that Christ has paid the price for our sins. It is also that he has paid the price for the healing of those wrongs caused by the sins.

We can cause a lot of harm without meaning to, or perhaps even knowing what we have done. As we grow in charity, we learn to care about that, but as we grow in wisdom we also see the impossibility of making things right on our own.

We will also often come up against the apparent impossibility of healing on our own, whether the injuries are from our own choices or the choices of others.

He even brings our dead back to us, or us back to our living, as the case may be.

There is a way, and the way in which it was worked means that we are also understood. Everything that makes it hard to be good and kind and grow and not just do something stupid in a minute that causes problems for years...

He knows all of that, and loves us. I don't know whether that love is because of or in spite of. It might be both.

It works.

That is how life is eventually fair, and better.

That is how God can be kind, even with suffering in the world.

That is how we heal.

God is good

Thinking about this next writing segment, I wanted to spend time on how so many of the doctrines we know are the only things that make sense, where in the long run everything is fair and has good outcomes.

I had a hard time getting started. It seemed like perhaps the issue was a need to demonstrate that the doctrines would have to ultimately be fair to everyone. 

I believe in a loving Father in Heaven who cares for his children and wants what's best for them. I forget that may not be a given. 

In high school, one of my friends had "Who created whom?" written on her notebook. I didn't appreciate the skepticism, but despite my belief in our origins, people often do believe in a god created in their own images: spiteful, petty, and vicious.

The other memory that comes up was from a book about the Salem Witch Trials and the hysteria. There was a verse about infants dying without baptism being a sin, but because they had not had a chance, they were promised the "easiest seat in Hell". 

With a god like that, who needs a devil?

If what I am going to write about are things that are necessary due to love, then that love needs to be a given. 

I can't give you logic for that; very logical minds have come up with hard and uncaring universes, and so have illogical minds.

That's not anything against logic, but it does have its shortcomings. 

There are topics when we need to be led by faith and intuition, but there are answers out there. In the church we refer to the Light of Christ. We can build on that light, and be helped by the Holy Ghost, and build our own relationship with God.

That's the starting point.

There are obstacles. 

I remember reading a book once about codependency. I didn't think it was a great book, or even that it really described codependency, but the insight that I felt gave it some worth was that parents who don't let their children make mistakes make it difficult for their children to build a relationship with God. 

That self-recrimination for imperfection makes it hard to approach someone who is perfect, especially when our parental models make us feel worse about that imperfection. 

There is a lot of pain in that, for which I sympathize, but I also promise that people who have too high a belief in their own perfections also have difficulty building a relationship with God; they just have their difficulty in a different way.

I still know it is possible. There are answers available. That there is acceptance and patience and help.

So often when people say "God is good", they are saying it after getting an outcome that they wanted. 

When you are hurting and you still know it, and when that is your pattern, that is part of the path to something better.

Wherever you are along your own path, I invite you to seek more.

With all my heart

It was probably about two months ago that I saw someone I respect complaining on Twitter about learning that her late great-grandfather had been baptized. That wasn't his religious background, they would not tell her who did it, and she was very upset.

Now, it is possible that the person who submitted the name could have been a second cousin she didn't know. It could have been a more distant relative.

I felt bad that she was upset, and concerned that a lot of it came from perceptions that the Church is full of awful bigoted people. That may not be completely fair, but there are some grounds for that impression.

While many shared her aggravation, some tried to defend it, saying that no one was forced to accept the ordinances. That is true but did not help.

Someone else suggested baptizing someone into the Church of Satan when they died, as long as that was the reasoning.

That is accurate enough; if you were to baptize me by proxy into another church, I would not accept it. No one has that kind of control over anyone else, and that is a good thing.

One key difference is that the motivation for that would be pretty spiteful. Spite is not a good religious motivation, though I can't rule out that it is present sometimes.

When I have submitted names and done ordinance work, it has been motivated by love. There was also often a sense of urgency for various reasons, where I felt that it was desired on the other side, and that people were ready and waiting. It was still love that made that matter.

It was also love that was often felt keenly while in the temple, as if I were receiving it back.

I am writing about that for two reasons. 

Firstly, there is too much spite in the world and not enough love; I want to get my vote in there for love.

Also, while I know that I am regularly critical (though my intentions are to help and I hope my motivation is love), I also have faith and devotion.

It would be easy to get caught up in the criticism, and lose faith; I am not doing that.

(I acknowledge that there will be people who think I am having faith wrong.)

About a year ago I spent some time on gifts that strengthened me, for similar reasons. I am not nearly as negative as I could appear to be.

So I intend to start this year with some faith affirming posts focusing on the restored gospel, which I believe in, even while being fully aware that there might be problems within the institution, members, and even leaders, but where I nonetheless stay.

I do this not just to affirm the truth, but also to affirm that those imperfections are not always reasons to leave. I also acknowledge that for many people leaving has made sense, and doubtless felt like the only possible response.

I know that, but also that we need to have grace for each other, inside and out.

I know that we need to love each other.

With all my heart.