Spiritual Sudoku

I recently worked my first Sudoku puzzle. If you’re not familiar, Sudoku puzzles have nine rows of nine digits each, organized into nine 3 x 3 squares. Each digit from 1-9 appears in each row, each column and each 3x3 square only once. The puzzle gives you a certain number of “known” digits to start, and you fill in the rest, using the given digits and subsequent “found” digits to determine placement of the remaining digits until the puzzle is complete.

(For a simple puzzle or two, you can go to lots of websites, including here.)

My first puzzle was very painful. It took me lots of trial and error to finally arrive at the correct solution. After some time, however, I’ve learned to look at the puzzles somewhat differently. I’m getting better at seeing the relationship of rows and columns and squares, and looking at all three simultaneously to discover which digit is missing from a particular sequence.

Of course the first puzzles are easier to solve. They have more digits given at the outset, so it’s a little easier to figure out what digits are missing and where they should fit. The harder puzzles have fewer digits, require closer observation and reasoning. Some of the puzzles I’ve done by making an educated guess and trying out a theory to see if it works, and when it fails I’ve had to unravel what I’ve done and try again.

Just like life.

In the early days of my testimony, I was concentrated on one row or one column, finding digits to fill in gaps and feeling pretty good about my progress. As I’ve matured spiritually and intellectually, I’ve come to see nuances I did not notice before. I don’t fault others for my lack of nuance. It wasn’t that I wasn’t taught about four first vision accounts, but that I first had to wrestle with the concept of the first vision before I could worry about different accounts. It wasn’t a question of peep stones in a hat versus “reading” the plates, but first the whole idea of divine “translation” regardless of the method.

As I have grown up in my spiritual understanding, I’ve also gotten a different sense over time about the relative importance of details compared with story arcs. When I concentrated on just one line or column, getting the right digit was easy, but it was also more important. When I’m looking at the whole puzzle, it’s more like fitting a piece of the jigsaw puzzle. Yes, the detail (the digit) is important, but what really matters is how the whole puzzle looks, not just one row or column. In my testimony, a particular fact or detail is still important, but as a part of a whole.

As a result, I can view a volume of scripture like the Book of Mormon in a variety of ways. First and foremost it is what it says it is: a testimony of Jesus Christ. (Even before we printed that on the cover it was clear from the title page and from most of 1 Nephi that’s what it was.) It’s no surprise to me that the record begins with a spiritual account rather than a historical one. (Never mind what Mormon’s plates did; I can only examine what I have in the final product.) The spiritual witness trumps the historicity of the book. (I don’t doubt the historicity, by the way; I do not read the book as totally allegorical, but I also am less concerned with examing finer points of geography and history and comparing them to the archeological record.)

Another thing that is true for me about the Sudoku puzzles is that I can look at the same collection of digits and see different things at different times. In one review, I can’t figure out how to put the digits together, and the next time I work my way through the puzzle I suddenly see something I hadn’t before, and the next part of the solution appears. That’s true for my testimony, as well.

I’ve had significant moments in my development of testimony where items I’ve held on the shelf for years have suddenly found resolution. Sometimes it’s because of new information that I learn, or a new way of looking at old information. Other times it’s simply (like it’s really simple!) a spiritual confirmation that I had previously lacked. For me it often comes when I am not looking for it, but always when I am looking. That is, often long-awaited answers come in the normal course of my spiritual development, while I’m on the path, trying to move closer to my Father in Heaven. I don’t remember their ever coming when I’ve been defiant or angry or out to prove someone wrong.

I’ve written before that I’m on a faith journey, and it is far from over. I am not one of those who will lightly say that all is well. As good as things are (and many, many things in my spiritual life are very good), all is not well. I have plenty of concerns for myself and for people I love. I still have plenty of unanswered questions. Some, I suspect, will not be answered until I get to attend Advance Gospel Principles in the next life. Some will undoubtedly be resolved in my normal course of study and prayer. But the presence of questions does not prevent my moving forward along my path, mostly because I remember the tender mercies of the past; I remember answers I have received, some dramatic and some not so much, but answers all the same.

Testimony and Faith Journeys

As I think about my membership in the LDS church (nearly 37 years now), I realize that I have been on quite a path. Although there are times when I have felt completely secure in my relationship with God and in my trust in my church, I also realize that there are times when I have felt far more vulnerable than I would have liked.


I reflect on this subject this week because of the NYT article making the rounds.  I should point out that there are some excellent responses to this article, including this one at BCC  and this one at BYU Studies.

What occurred to me, however, is that just like Brother Mattsson, featured in the NTY article, each of us is on a faith journey. (The idea isn’t completely my own. I was spurred to this thought by this article written by a friend some time ago and shared with me this week.)

In some ways it is appropriate that I ponder my faith journey during the same week we celebrate a journey of another sort by Mormon pioneers who made their way to the Intermountain West where they could (for a time at least) be free of the persecution they had known in Kirtland, Missouri and Nauvoo. The pioneers, of course, traveled a path of physical, emotional and (I imagine, at least) spiritual hardship, as they physically tested their commitment to the gospel and the prophet Brigham. Their sacrifice was tangible and in many cases terrible, leaving possessions, family members either behind or along the way. Families were separated by circumstance, by service in the Mormon Battalion and in some cases by death.

I am a convert to the church; although I have American pioneers in my heritage, I do not have Mormon pioneers. My pioneer ancestors went to the Pacific Northwest primarily for economic reasons, and while they worked hard to go, they did not suffer the persecution of the Mormon pioneers. My wife’s ancestors, on the other hand, included Mormon pioneers, some of whom suffered greatly in their journey. My wife reflected early in our marriage that she did not think she could have endured the trials of her Mormon pioneer ancestors.

Harold B. Lee is often quoted as saying that in our day we will likely face different tests of our faith from those of the pioneers. While they faced physical challenges, we will face challenges of sophistication. In addition to challenges of sophistication (and some may include the issues highlighted in the NYT article in that mix), I think we have other trials of our faith that may well be common to other generations. That has certainly been my experience.

My challenges of sophistication – that is a scholarly set of questions that I had not encountered in seminary and Sunday School – came early in my career at BYU, when I had a roommate who invited me to address a series of questions he’d learned from his father who was in the process of leaving the church. That experience was critical in my development of a stronger testimony of the gospel. During that year I learned how I could approach questions of our history (and I enjoyed the resources of BYU’s library and one particularly helpful faculty member to do it; I don’t know how I could have done that far from BYU in the pre-internet age). And I had a number of other spiritual experiences unrelated to those questions that reinforced the testimony I brought with me to BYU. That combination helped me through a period that could otherwise have significantly challenged my faith. I learned not only answers to many questions, but also HOW to answer questions in the future (and how to wait when answers were not immediately available).

But those are not the only challenges to my faith. Part of my faith journey includes other trials of faith that come up in everyone’s life: sought-after blessings that may have been slow to appear, children who chose different paths and so on. Life is simply not easy. When what we perceive to be righteous desires are slow to be realized, it can challenge us – at least it has challenged me. Knowing that no success can compensate for failure in the home gives me pause when I know that my home is not perfect. Learning to pray to understand God’s will rather than to present Him a list of my wishes is a lesson that took me decades to learn. In these trials, I suppose perhaps I have kinship with those Mormon pioneers who may not have consciously signed up for the journey they ultimately took.

I think about testimony meetings, where we’re invited to share briefly what we know or believe and how we’ve come to know it. Of course those testimonies are often point-in-time snapshots along our life’s journey of faith, a journey that is often complex and even uncertain. As for me, I am now experiencing mine one day at a time, grateful for where I am today.