Mere Minutiae of a Bemused Man

Gasp! I realize that Friday evening is held sacrosanct by singles, and to reveal that one is not “out and about” at such a time is considered unspeakably awful, even at the price of ignoring the phone and pretending to have prior commitments for possible engagements. Not that I understand such escapist measures.

Well, tonight I’m reminded of why, when in a relationship, I switched official date night over to Thursday night to escape the traffic jams. Now, when I can manage it, I also make temple trips correspond with Thursday. (The Brethren hold their temple meeting on that day, and myriad are the stories of their prayers’ influence reaching around the globe.) If a currently single individual is immune to the effects of watching happy couples, Friday night is still rather crowded at both the Mount Timpanogos and Provo temples, regardless, because it does make an excellent date night activity.

I suppose the major announcement for the day would be that I got the promotion I put in for. It is lateral for the time being, because of my natural progression in the old track, though the time in grade is what helped me qualify.

I will now end up on the rating board, and such seems far more suited to my interests. As for aspirations, people don’t believe me when I say I had none. I certainly wouldn’t appreciate being advanced faster than my merit. I grew very weary, too, of hearing other applicants discuss the career track and monetary benefits. My own grandmother couldn’t comprehend my saying I don’t care about the money. I entered the process with no interest in the outcome other than what the Lord wanted for me. (Sometimes I suspect He’s more inclined to bless when we genuinely leave the results in His hands, yet surely the reader realizes that to concentrate on such a reality removes the cause described. Surrender of will is by definition a conscious decision, but also a very natural one.)

My life (and blog) will make little sense if one doesn’t realize that I mean what I say. If I ever have an agenda, it’s transparent even to myself. For instance, I like doctrine for its obvious, inherent value, and not for any ill-gotten gain thereby. I can’t think of a better theme to occupy one’s heart and mind, or set the pace for one’s motives. Nor can I imagine to myself that Heavenly Father will say “come unto me, ye blessed,” if I wasn’t as precise with the doctrine as my abilities allow me to be.

In fact, I loathe hypocrites in terms much like President Brigham Young’s: “There is not one man in this city nor in the Territory who hates the truth and the Latter-day Saints, whose influence I dread, no, not even the hundredth part, as I do a smooth, slick hypocrite who professes to be a Latter-day Saint. The former cannot sow the seeds of infidelity and unbelief in the hearts of the people; but the latter can.” I have known some very tender-hearted people who cite hypocrisy as the chief reason they left the Church at some point. Twice in my life I have faced situations in which I could think, “People have never returned to church over lesser things.” It came down to this test: 1) The Savior, who leads this Church, needed me to hear and incorporate that; 2) The Savior had nothing to do with it, and as President Wilford Woodruff said, “It will do me no good if I apostatize because somebody's family follows the fashions of Babylon, or because some man or woman or some set of men and women do wrong. . . . It will do me no good if I apostatize because I think somebody else does not do right.” That the Savior doesn’t want us to turn our backs on the greatest possible blessings holds true whatever the circumstances.

We’re all subject to at least passing hypocrisies as we travel through life. Why are even the righteous so? Because if people don’t have goals, then they really have no profession at all. It is in actuality good to have goals so high above us that we almost can’t help but differ. When all is said and done, Christ can—and I choose this word carefully, on the basis of personal agency meeting godly omnipotence—mend the difference. This is in point of fact why I cannot imagine setting standards any lower than the exact manner prescribed by the Lord in holy utterance. (No, I won’t launch into a series of quotes about how our sights must be high or we will come short of the goal: exaltation.)

President Hinckley placed a high premium on the sort of honesty I seek high and low. From an article about honesty regarding Internet downloading in this month’s New Era: “President Gordon B. Hinckley has said, ‘How rare a gem, how precious a jewel is the man or woman in whom there is neither guile nor deception nor falsehood!’ We can all be that kind of man or woman by being honest in everything we say and do.” I left the author’s sentence as glue to the next prophetic phrase: “We should teach our children that honesty even in minor things is important if they are to obtain a place in the Celestial kingdom” (George Albert Smith, CR, Apr. 1929, 32).

I’ll quote from Samuel Johnson now, only because it actually ties into other Church quotes I’m not employing on this occasion, and because his last sentence is lead-in to something regarding DOCTRINE I may discuss in the near future, that transpired this afternoon.

James Boswell, The Life of Samuel Johnson [Roslyn, New York: Black's Readers Service, 1952], 370-371:
“Johnson gave a very earnest recommendation of what he himself practised with the utmost consciousness: I mean a strict attention to truth, even in the most minute particulars. 'Accustom your children (said he) constantly to this; if a thing happened at one window, and they, when relating it, say that it happened at another, do not let it pass, but instantly check them; you do not know where deviation from truth will end.' . . . ‘It is more from carelessness about truth than from intentional lying, that there is so much falsehood in the world.’

I swoop back in with Brigham Young: “It is the misapplied intelligence God has given us that makes all the mischief on the earth.” Anyway, in cultivating relationships with others, this has become something of a sore point with me. I wrote in January 2003, “I pray daily now to be spared all lingering affection for a girl who is either dense or deceptive, and most likely the latter. (I'd rather be a moron than an inveterate liar.)”

The Brethren are saying with increasing frequency that there are undesirable elements of deception on the dating scene. I have made my own share of mistakes with regard to ferreting it out, but how can one properly vow to be less trusting? It may be a positive development—one that I needed—that flattery doesn’t move me any more, because of so much time spent with a girl who had a knack for always saying what she thought I wanted to hear. She may even have believed it, but several Confucian sayings capture the difficulties with her sentiment: “In antiquity men were loath to speak. This was because they counted it shameful if their person failed to keep up with their words;” “The gentleman is ashamed of his word outstripping his deed;” “The thing about the gentleman is that he is anything but casual where speech is concerned;” “Claims made immodestly are difficult to live up to.” I cannot understand resting upon one’s laurels when there are always more to be won, we may be too inflated in our opinion of those we have, and there’s more than a strong inducement to “endure to the end.” Yet again, the ultimate doctrine is that our efforts are paltry and worthless unless we join hands with the Savior in His work.

Still, somewhat amusedly, I share one choice little gem from my studies of Reformation history, where Erasmus took Luther to task: “Why is there so frequent a mention of judgement in Holy Scriptures if there is no weighing of merits? Or are we compelled to be present at the Judgement Seat if nothing has happened through our own will, but all things have been done in us by sheer necessity? There is the further objection: What is the point of so many admonitions, so many precepts, so many threats, so many exhortations, so many expostulations, if of ourselves we do nothing, but God in accordance with his immutable will does everything in us, both to will and to perform the same? He wishes us to pray without ceasing, to watch, to fight, to contend for the prize of eternal life. Why does he wish anything to be unceasingly prayed for which he has already decreed either to give or not to give, and cannot change his decrees, since he is immutable?”

Two separate thoughts from letters President Joseph F. Smith wrote his sons:

“I do not believe in flattery. I prize real merit.”

“Let everyone stand, or rise or fall upon real merit. . . . I want my boys to avoid, absolutely[,] the manifestation of a feeling or thought expressed in the aphorism, ‘I am better than thou!’ Better is as better does. . . .
“He that does well, will not lose his reward, and he who does better than another, or than others, and boasts not of it, nor prides himself on his superior works will surely receive his reward. And it will be a glorious one.” (This makes me think of D&C 58:32-33; 130:19.)

That was a long mental detour! I’m thinking of honesty because of what I decided, inadequately, to convey to my interviewers on Tuesday. For the past year I’ve taken constant ribbing for nearly always wearing a white shirt and tie to work.

President Ezra Taft Benson once remarked, “The expression ‘follow the Brethren’ has a broader meaning than some would apply to it. It means not only to agree with the counsel given to the Church by the Brethren, but also to follow their example in appearance and deportment.” I’m not extending that in insane proportions, but subsequent Brethren have certainly stepped up to support views about, shall we say, what President Hinckley termed “sloppy ways lead to sloppy lives.”

Regarding church apparel for every aspect of church administration (to include ministering to the sick), President Harold B. Lee said, “When I have an appointment with the Lord, I always want to look my very best.” I’m intrigued by the account of one rabbi who slept fully clothed so that he could roll straight out of bed to greet the Messiah. Such is an admitted excess, but I must agree that—worthiness being obviously conceded regardless in such an extremity—I would still feel more comfortable in decent attire than t-shirt and jeans, if the recipient of a heavenly visitation.

In the final analysis, though, I simply enjoy dressing in this fashion. It has nothing to do with ambition or comparison. It just helps me feel better inside and out. (And I’m keenly aware of my need to budget for additional suits, difficult though they are to size for me.) In contradistinction, I knew of a man who swore to never wear a white shirt again after his mission. I wonder if that made temple work a difficult affair?

Returning to the story for the second time, I saw several people dressed on interview day in garb completely foreign to them. They clawed at their throats and kept a carefully primped suit jacket hung beside them. These were promptly cast aside once the purposes of the interview were met. As internal hires who were visible every day to management, who did they think they were fooling?

So I decided to tell the interviewers that I just got up and came in to work like every day, not that I didn’t take this particular process seriously, but that I always take my work seriously. Perhaps not in regard to height and the like, what they see IS what they get. (Believe me, you couldn’t fake your wardrobe for an entire year, and I think that’s why the comments have fallen off dramatically.)

Good night, and may you be blessed with fewer neuroses than I’ve managed to display!