A healthy dose of “Sunday will come” thoughts (exploring Mosiah 3:19 "the hard way")

Hurrah for finishing my month-long “systematic analysis of operations” at work!

I’m also rejoicing over more good news. I’d have scanned two images side by side if I could find the first... In late 2005 I obtained a signed note off a prescription pad that I was diagnosed with celiac sprue. Now I have a letter in July 2008 stating that biopsy results came back normal (after flooding my system with the “allergen”). Going about three years without pizza, cereal, or even normal sacrament bread would make you somewhat uptight, too. ;-) Anyway, I’m more than willing to give God the credit, especially since He’s had free access to my innards, and no one in the medical profession has touched them.

The doctor can no more twit the bearer of the priesthood that the sick one would have recovered without the administration than the one administering can twit the doctor on the same point. They stand on equal ground, so far as human knowledge goes. The priesthood does not always heal—God in his wisdom does not permit the healing to be done—neither does the doctor always heal. An overruling Providence governs both. (J. Reuben Clark, Jr., “Man--God's Greatest Miracle” [Salt Lake City: Deseret Book Company, 1968], 29)

1. Food for thought
In summarizing the past month, I return to a little bit more of the sobering, though I’ve actually categorized myself as an “optimistic realist.” Somehow these troubled times for our world provoke such commentary from me, particularly in open social discourse. I suppose I hope that defending values “at all times and in all things, and in all places” (“even unto death”) can make a difference. One can accentuate the positive among their immediate circle, but openly assault the negative for mankind’s sake. I’ve occasionally thought that continually reiterating one’s own mortality and everyone else’s goodness when giving talks, lessons, and the like can be a waste of valuable time that could be spent driving to the very means of reforming humanity, not that those aren’t things that could be reasonably stated. If others didn’t seem to be emphasizing that part, then I imagine I’d want to stand up and say it.

Elder Oaks shared a daunting insight: “A call for repentance that is clear enough and loud enough to encourage reformation for the lax can produce paralyzing discouragement for the conscientious. This is a common problem. We address a diverse audience each time we speak, and we are never free from the reality that a doctrinal underdose for some is an overdose for others.”

Much as I might enjoy feasting on the word, and be in total agreement with Alma and the Prophet Joseph Smith about delicious doctrine, it’s critical to be sensitive to the dietary needs of others until “the perfect day,” when the perfect remedy has been fully applied to all of our delicate systems. Nevertheless, those who obsessively cite passages in favor of milk before meat seemingly fail to set essential goals. To quote myself, actually somewhat reluctantly:

Ah, yes, when Paul realized the people of Corinth could not yet handle meat, he attributed it to their carnality: “envying, and strife, and divisions” (1 Cor. 3:3), as if to say had they been mature he would be teaching meat. “Awake...” (1 Cor. 15:34). He may well have said to them, “Grow up!” (1 Cor. 13:11; 14:20; Heb. 5:13-14).

And to quote a vastly superior source:

I have little patience with persons who say, “Oh, nobody is perfect,” the implication being: “so why try?” Of course no one is wholly perfect, but we find some who are a long way up the ladder. (The Teachings of Spencer W. Kimball, 165)

Have you ever encountered individuals who exercise little quality control over the worldly sources they listen to, yet bristle when one comes bearing spiritual truths, and suddenly insist upon perfection—generally as defined by themselves—in the speaker before they will heed one word? Not until Christ reigns in person will we enjoy such a privilege. Might they not be uncomfortable under such government? (See Mormon 9:1-6, along with the strong, oft-repeated scriptural counsel that one must receive Christ’s servants—pointing most specifically to the Brethren—in order to receive Him.) I’m reminded of Elder Melvin J. Ballard’s comical(?) remarks:

Some folks get the notion that the problems of life will at once clear up and they will know that this is the Gospel of Christ when they die. I have heard people say they believe when they die they will see Peter and that he will clear it all up. I said, “You never will see Peter until you accept the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, at the hands of the elders of the Church, living or dead.” . . . Living or dead, they shall not hear it from anyone else. (Melvin J. Ballard, “Three Degrees of Glory,” 22 Sep 1922, 17; see his comments in CR, Jun. 1919, 71-72; D&C 138:29-32)

I’ll follow this with two “secular” sources, not troubling myself to dig out myriads of Church quotations. Due to incidental events in my life, my main means of verifying them fully verbatim from my library and providing precise references (something I insist upon doing in print) is unavailable for a few weeks. I have a natural aversion to paraphrasing, except very carefully, where pure doctrine is concerned—and this too is sustained by some more quotes. ;-) For brush strokes to the picture that the Gospel requires progressive movement along the strait and narrow (see, for instance, 2 Nephi 31:19-21):

It may be very attractive to preach to men, and say, “You men are very good and very self-sacrificing, and we take pleasure in revealing your goodness to you. Now, since you are so good, you will probably be interested in Christianity, especially in the life of Jesus, which we believe is good enough even for you.” But that preaching is useless; it is useless to call the righteous to repentance. (J. Gresham Machen, in Ned B. Stonehouse, J. Gresham Machen: A Biographical Memoir [Philadelphia, PA: Westminster Theological Seminary, 1977], 302)

Or what medical man, anxious to heal a sick person, would prescribe in accordance with the patient’s whims, and not according to the requisite medicine? But that the Lord came as the physician of the sick, He does Himself declare, saying, “They that are whole need not a physician, but they that are sick; I came not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” [Luke 5:31-32]. How then shall the sick be strengthened, or how shall sinners come to repentance? Is it by persevering in the very same courses? or, on the contrary, is it by undergoing a great change and reversal of their former mode of living, by which they have brought upon themselves no slight amount of sickness, and many sins? (Irenaeus, quoted in L. Russ Bush, Classical Readings in Christian Apologetics [Grand Rapids, Michigan: Academie Books, 1983], 79)

2. Current events are scary
This week I experienced the coincidence of a current event that lends unfortunate color to my dream—previously shared on this blog—about the pledge of allegiance, not that I’m elevating the dream above “fried liver and onions” status (see THBL, 417; Charles W. Penrose, CR, Oct. 1922, 26; TSWK, 455; Gerald N. Lund, Hearing the Voice of the Lord, 39f.n.), insofar as dreams are best understood as a strong expression of my own emotions.

Apparently the matter of standing at attention for the pledge of allegiance is being seriously revisited. In this case, it’s not hard to guess the logical outcome given current developments carried into the next generation. I’m also not oblivious to controversy on BYU campus about this very issue.

Judicial ruling to force respect in this particular fashion would be of worse than dubious virtue, so we are simply left to bemoan the unraveling societal fabric, as fewer and fewer support the fundamentals. (My junior high and high school conveniently lapsed on conducting the pledge.) Incidentally, I more ardently DO favor legislation to oppose flag-burning and have written about it at length. Before you spar with me, just be aware that I can bring President Packer and others directly to bear on the debate. ;-)

3. Dark before the dawn
In the month of July I received the single worst news of my life. (Much, much worse than the one those who know me might be thinking of.) Since there’s nothing to be done for the news, I may as well count my blessings that it didn’t involve sin, so I still have family, health, and GOSPEL. (See D&C 98:11-15.) In fact, I’ve still got life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Truly, the Lord is the only one with the real power to give and to take away.

To foreshadow what I thought would be the latter part of this entry, but which is now deferred to another day, I employ humor:

The meteorologist on my television was giving the weekend forecast. “On Sunday there may be showers, but if the front pushes through early, we might awaken to a gorgeous sunrise,” he predicted.

A reporter called out from the news desk, “When will you know for sure what the weather will be like on Sunday?”

The weatherman replied, “Monday morning.” (Mary C. Ardis, Reader's Digest, Apr. 1997, 93)

We Christians await a yet future, glorious Sonrise “with healing in his wings.” In the meantime: stormy weather, for the end is not yet!!!

4. Moving on
So last month I had to make another difficult decision only partially related to the aforementioned bad news. Shall I just say that by now I ought to know a one-sided relationship when I’m in one? This one lasted almost exactly as long as the “other” one. (This belongs to my Dating Bill of Rights #7, although in this context I’m referring to a somewhat broader social contract...no, not even marriage!) I detest when my longsuffering eventually begins to peter out into uncharitable thoughts. By virtue of my deliberate redeployment, I nonetheless don’t intend to have taken the easy way out of strengthening that weakness of mine.

It was time to move on, all the same. The movie Regarding Henry captures that feeling: “Well, I had enough. So I said when.”

This much I know: I needed to proceed from the known to the unknown, for the known was only marginally acceptable for future planning. It seemed like a terrible—but necessary—risk. I not infrequently object to uses to which the doctrine of agency is put in arguing just such things, as though we should live haphazardly instead of viewing agency as the right to choose the right (which is clearly defined, at that)...but the truest grasp of this particular principle and practice has often been recounted by President Packer:

We once had a major decision to make. When our prayers left us uncertain, I went to see Elder Harold B. Lee. He counseled us to proceed. Sensing that I was still very unsettled, he said, “The problem with you is you want to see the end from the beginning.” Then he quoted this verse from the Book of Mormon, “Dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith” (Ether 12:6).

He added, “You must learn to walk a few steps ahead into the darkness, and then the light will turn on and go before you.”

When this principle was abused by someone with faulty doctrinal agendas, I responded in part, “He quotes the taking ‘a few steps . . . into the darkness’ theme, but it appears he ventured out in the wrong direction.”

5. Dreaming about feelings
While a geographical move was in order this month, it being “needful for me to obtain another place of residence,” much as I will miss some whom I leave behind, I also had to deliberately situate myself differently socially. In reflecting upon interpersonal relationships, I’m reminded of the adage, “The opposite of love is not hate, but indifference” (Elie Wiesel, A Jew Today [New York: Random House, 1978], 183).

Someone has said the opposite of love is not hate; the opposite of love is apathy. And I say to you brethren, the most dangerous thing that can happen between you and your wife or between me and my wife is apathy—not hate, but for them to feel that we are not interested in their affairs, that we are not expressing our love and showing our affection in countless ways. (The Teachings of Harold B. Lee, 241)

Some of my feelings that were running high remind me of another dream, May 22, 1999:

They were all very much ignoring me; the part that saddened me most is that it didn’t seem outright intentional. It was more like I simply escaped their notice. . . . They seemed like little children. . . . They still had no idea of the calamities that would soon befall all of them. I was feeling even more out of place than ever before.

As I was sitting by the door a man stepped in briefly and told me I didn’t have much time left. I nodded and looked back at the crowd of blissfully happy students. No longer caring about social restrictions, I began whistling the tune to “Praise to the Man.” I ignored their stares and frowns. Mom came to the door and told me it was time to go. I stood up and, without so much as a backward glance, walked out of there.

I was in a large city and saw three people pursuing a dangerous man. I waited at a corner to join the chase . . . . Just as they were approaching, the man pulled out what could best be described as a colorful grenade. Immediately everyone stopped following him and crowds gathered to the grenade. They had no idea that it would destroy them, and were ignoring my calls of warning.

So I ran after him alone. . . .

I think of this sobering reminder, fit for the affairs of this day: “To get salvation we must not only do some things, but everything which God has commanded. . . . The object with me is to obey and teach others to obey God in just what He tells us to do. It mattereth not whether the principle is popular or unpopular, I will always maintain a true principle, even if I stand alone in it” (Teachings of Presidents of the Church: Joseph Smith, 161).

One real-life application for the vivid dream is discovered in a pamphlet that Hugh B. Brown issued as part of his charge over servicemen during World War II:

There is a cunning, wily enemy whose whole business is to prepare booby traps and lure men into them. He not only teaches the fool to say in his heart, “There is no God,” but he beguiles him into thinking that evil is desirable and inevitable. Sin is the devil’s booby trap, and no amount of bravado will change the sinner’s status. . . .

Do not allow either desire for the bait, nor curiosity to know the mechanism, to lure you into any of his deadly traps, which often are cunningly camouflaged to deceive the unwary. And do not be deceived if what you have been taught to recognize as such a trap does not seem to spring at the first contact. Many of them are time bombs, but there are no duds in the armory of sin.

Some men are led to think that because the punishment is not immediate, the danger of sin has been exaggerated or avoided. We may be sure that all the devil’s booby traps will explode eventually with deadly and undiscriminating effect. (quoted in Paul H. Kelly, Lin H. Johnson, Courage in a Season of War: Latter-day Saints Experience World War II [n.p., 2002], 534-535)

6. Thinking about feelings
This time of life presents an unusual opportunity for me to reflect, coming to know myself and my many weaknesses (and certainly strengths, too, but nobody needs to hear about that). My mother, who has a degree in psychology, likes to study behaviors and ponder how some people got so strange. I imagine I’ve given her endless amusement! One day I came across a journal entry she’d made when I was very little. She referred to a psychological term: transference.

Evidently when I was wheeled into the operating room I asked my doctor why the light insisted on hurting me so much. It took him a moment or two to realize that I was quite seriously blaming every hurtful act on the surgical lamp. I knew that the doctor loved me, so there was no chance I’d let myself get upset with him—speak of the benevolent physician who paradoxically causes pain to cure us of our afflictions! That gentle man made sure that he cuffed the lamp about where I could see it, and then I was satisfied. He treated patients from all over the world, and one day, during a post-operative physical therapy checkup, he confided that of everyone, I was the one he knew he could always push to any limit and I wouldn’t cry.

Perhaps some crying is a manifestation of surprise, indignation, out-and-out rebellion, seeking compensation, or maybe just hoping for reassurances, and our relationship of trust simply didn’t admit such a possibility. When it comes to my relationship with God, like de Tocqueville, “I had rather mistrust my own capacity than his justice.” (The reader is referred to the popular C.S. Lewis quote about (spiritual) home improvement that “hurts abominably.”) For some ideas to bounce against your brain about justice and mercy performing their procedures on us:

An incident occurred during our son’s early childhood that illustrated for me this profound love of the heavenly Father. Ryan had a terrible ear infection when he was three years old that kept him (and us) awake most of the night. Shirley bundled up the toddler the next morning and took him to see the pediatrician. . . .

Shirley did the best she could. She put Ryan on the examining table and attempted to hold him down. But he would have none of it. When the doctor inserted the pick-like instrument in his ear, the child broke loose and screamed to high heaven. The pediatrician then became angry at Shirley and told her if she couldn't follow instructions she’d have to go get her husband. I was in the neighborhood and quickly came to the examining room. After hearing what was needed, I swallowed hard and wrapped my 200-pound, 6-foot-2-inch frame around the toddler. It was one of the toughest moments in my career as a parent.

What made it so emotional was the horizontal mirror that Ryan was facing on the back side of the examining table. This made it possible for him to look directly at me as he screamed for mercy. I really believe I was in greater agony in that moment than my terrified little boy. It was too much. I turned him loose—and got a beefed-up version of the same bawling-out that Shirley had received a few minutes earlier. Finally, however, the grouchy pediatrician and I finished the task.

I reflected later on what I was feeling when Ryan was going through so much suffering. What hurt me was the look on his face. Though he was screaming and couldn’t speak, he was “talking” to me with those big blue eyes. He was saying, “Daddy! Why are you doing this to me? I thought you loved me. I never thought you would do anything like this! How could you . . . ? Please, please! Stop hurting me!”

It was impossible to explain to Ryan that his suffering was necessary for his own good, that I was trying to help him, that it was love that required me to hold him on the table. How could I tell him of my compassion in that moment? I would gladly have taken his place on the table, if possible. But in his immature mind, I was a traitor who had callously abandoned him. (James Dobson, When God Doesn't Make Sense [Wheaton, Illinois: Tyndale House Publishers, Inc., 1993], 60-62)

At any rate, I overcame my early childhood propensity for shifting the blame by becoming almost surgical in my examination of cause and effect in mortality. Sin is the cause of human suffering, and ignorance is its traveling companion. (Now, I’m not saying that another’s sin can’t cause you a great deal of pain.) Many an atheist or confused believer who gets tangled up in causality, laying false theological groundwork on the basis of what they have decided God should or should not allow, cannot see that the abundant life exists in sheer spite of what we normally term suffering. We spend too much time trying to fix the wrong things, denying, repressing, transferring. It helps so much more to simply set our sights on the proper course: “look to God and live.” Of a truth, “every world problem may be solved by obedience to the principles of the gospel of Jesus Christ” (David O. McKay, Gospel Ideals, 5).

7. Anticlimactic thoughts/feelings for my dreams
In this winnowing internal process, I came to a start not long ago upon realizing my soft spot for certain childlike characteristics, to the point of seeking them in potential dates. Unfortunately, this has left me prone to winding up instead with childISH people. As for identifying their brand of incompatibility with me, I don’t know that “transference” would be the term for it so much as “rubber conscience,” but it’s unbelievable the characters I’ve willingly consorted with.

For starters, the first girl that I ever took a bold relationship step with, having sort of, you know, spent a lot of time with her, at her frequent invitation.... (And I still believe in taking a direct approach when you’re prepared to hear the answer.) Of course it’s difficult to know what to tell people, but is this not a curious response? “I feel bad that I like you as a friend and you don’t feel the same way.” Where do you find the guilty party therein, regardless of the fact that she mentioned experiencing negative emotions? I much prefer, “I don’t feel the same way,” or, “You’re a good friend. I doubt you’d be a good partner.”

Then there’s the last girl that I ever took a bold relationship step with, to my lasting regret. While throwing turmoil into nearly every corner of my life, she offered this: “No decision have I made more completely, than I want my future to be yours as well.” She was true to her word on this. Can you detect the early warning sign of one will being imposed upon another? Whose is it? Maybe in the future I should look for a little more discussion about my future, or a synergistic “our future.” For some inexplicable reason, I believed her when at the critical DTR juncture she solemnly took my hands and told me, “I’m yours.” There were at least six cases of unfaithfulness after that, but I was caught up in the fact that she’d pledged her troth. Difficult as it may be to believe of my personality, that was a time when forgiveness was pressed into the extreme of permissiveness.

Forgiving others . . . does not necessarily mean that we would endorse or approve of the behavior or transgression. In fact, there are many actions and attitudes that deserve clear condemnation. But even in these we must completely forgive the offender: “Forgive, and ye shall be forgiven” (Luke 6:37). (Cecil O. Samuelson, Jr., Ensign, Feb. 2003, 50)

I liked the statement put out by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops—pertaining more specifically to spousal abuse—that said “forgiveness ‘is not permission to repeat the abuse’” (The Washington Post, cited in The Daily Herald, Saturday, November 30, 2002, C5).

I suppose these were remnants of my childhood unwillingness to admit that someone was hurting me, such that my mother has said loud and clear, “Kris, you were a doormat.” My father said, “Every time you gave her rope, she hung herself with it.” My brother-in-law said early on that if my sister had done just a few of those things in dating, he’d have been through. My sister—well, she knew the moment she first laid eyes on her that I wasn’t being treated well. In a rare lucid moment I basically begged her to either change her ways or let me go, when I told her that (as journal-written) "I'd known many types of pain in my life, and I was convinced that this past month has been filled with unnecessary pain."

This quote cuts kind of close to the heart of the matter:

This tendency to avoid problems and the emotional suffering inherent in them is the primary basis of all human mental illness. Since most of us have this tendency to a greater or lesser degree, most of us are mentally ill to a greater or lesser degree, lacking complete mental health. (M. Scott Peck, The Road Less Traveled: A New Psychology of Love, Traditional Values and Spiritual Growth [New York: A Touchstone Book, 1978], 17)

I’m embarrassed about my avoidant behavior, determined to never again be so mentally unsound. (Though many relationship counselors, in one form or another, discuss the irony that we must make some of the most important decisions of our lives at a time when our brains may not be functioning normally.) “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).

I don’t think I expressed myself very clearly in a recent discussion with a friend. I owe him two playful quotes that came to mind but went unuttered, about the cheer, color, and vibrance that women bring into men’s lives:

You know all women are good, or ought to be. They were made for angelic beings, and I would be glad to see them act more angelic in their behaviour. You were made more angelic, and a little weaker than man. Man is made of rougher material, to open the way, cut down bushes, and kill the snakes, that women may walk along through life, and not soil and tear their skirts. (Heber C. Kimball, JD, 2:154)

About seventy of these anchorites live together in this building, where everything around exhibits an aspect of gloom and misery, as might be expected where nature is interrupted by the exclusion of the cheering, enlivening and happy influence of women. (Lorenzo Snow, February 26, 1873 letter from Jerusalem, in Eliza R. Snow Smith, Biography and Family Record of Lorenzo Snow, 537-538)

There’s that indomitable spirit of mine, willing to put my future in the Lord’s hands and continue to trust in those things which He has ordained! (Hm, I’m thinking the definition of indomitable works very poorly in a sentence about submission to the Lord’s will.)