Turning from peace

I love the hymn “Where Can I Turn For Peace?” Emma Lou Thayne’s text speaks to my heart and experience:

Where can I turn for peace?
Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart,
Searching my soul?

Where, when my aching grows,
Where, when I languish,
Where, in my need to know, where can I run?
Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand?
He, only One.

He answers privately,
Reaches my reaching
In my Gethsemane, Savior and Friend.
Gentle the peace he finds for my beseeching.
Constant he is and kind,
Love without end.

For me, the key is in the first stanza: “I draw myself apart.”

I have lived long enough to know how I draw myself apart.

I can feel it when it happens now. And fortunately it is not a common experience. But I am aware enough to see it, just the way I could see the impending accident years ago when a blown tire caused me to skid and spin and flip off a freeway in Venezuela. At that time, I took my foot of the accelerator; I counter-steered. And still I skidded and spun and eventually rolled over off the road and down the embankment where I landed a little bruised but otherwise none the worse for wear. (Not so my vehicle – it was totaled.)

An example: A harmless conversation that in an instant went poorly. I might have foreseen it, since it was a political question. But we’d talked about the subject before, so I assumed we agreed when in fact we didn’t. The disagreement set off my defenses, and I responded far too quickly. And as quickly as it started, communication ended, shut down. Silence.

There were no harsh and angry words exchanged. This was not a debate nor an argument. It was silence.

In my heart my aching grew. I sought that quiet hand to calm my anguish. I apologized, knowing an apology was not enough. I prayed silently for peace, for comfort, for guidance.

Here’s the remarkable thing: In the first stanza I find myself searching my soul with anger and malice, and yet I still crave the healing touch of my Savior. My aching grows as I realize my role, and I feel that anguish that comes in realizing my own weakness. My only choice is to seek mercy – the mercy of Him who has power to save, and the mercy of the person I’ve offended.

In that instance, as He spoke peace to my soul, so did my lovely wife. As He reached my reaching, so did she. Love without end, indeed.

Mourning with those who wear pants

I had no plans to write about pants. In fact, were it not for the internet, I would know nothing about the pants thing from this past weekend.

But after church as we drove to my BIL’s home for a second thanksgiving dinner, my 16-year old son brought it up. He had seen it on Facebook and read gazillions of comments.

My 12-year old daughter was totally flummoxed. Why would women want to wear pants to church anyway? So we talked about some of the issues they were trying to address and what we all thought about this issues and how they were being raised.

What irked my son is what irked me, and that is how supposedly otherwise faithful Latter-day Saints were talking to one another about the issue on line. The vitriol, while no longer shocking to anyone who spends more than 10 minutes reading comments on anything online, was disappointing among those who covenant to mourn with those that mourn and comfort those who stand in need of comfort.

He was the first to acknowledge that any online discussion seems to attract the highly opinionated and the trolls, and that most people who argue in those forums have no interest in listening to another point of view. They seem instead to seek support for whatever viewpoint they bring with them to the fight.

My lovely wife had some interesting observations from her own experience. She’s served in a number of Relief Society presidencies, and is now in our stake Relief Society presidency. She’s been a part of ward councils in wards on three continents, and has consistently felt her voice has been heard by the bishops and stake presidents with whom she’s served. Furthermore, she knows that the Relief Society presidents in our stake are key to the successful running of their wards; their bishops seek their counsel and listen to it.

She also acknowledges that not everyone has the same experience she does.

As for pants in our ward? I have no idea. We often have one or two or three sisters in pants anyway for one reason or another. But I don’t really pay much attention. As I mentioned in another conversation on the subject, I tend to pay attention to what my lovely wife and my daughter are wearing, and I don’t pay attention to others.

When I think about those who feel like they are standing on the outside looking in, I hope we treat them with love and kindness. I’m reminded of an experience I had as a young married man:

We lived in a Provo family ward just after we were married. I was soon called to be the Sunday School president (at the time that Sunday School opening exercises was done away with), and I felt my calling to be increasingly less important. Still my counselors and I made a good effort to attend classes, provide feedback, hold in-service meetings, and so on. I never could, however, figure out the value of the stake Sunday School organization. The one stake training meeting I attended seemed totally useless to me, and I felt we were doing just fine on our own.

I’m fairly certain I was not shy about my contempt for the stake organization (since I wasn’t shy about much in those days). And yet, every time the stake Sunday School president visited out ward, he’d put his arm around me, give me a warm handshake and tell me how much he loved me and appreciated the work we were doing in our ward.

I don’t remember anything I taught in our in-service meetings, but to this day I remember the warmth and kindness I felt from this man who was doing his best to magnify his calling, despite my hubris.

I hope that if I met any of the pants-sympathizers (or any of the pants-haters, for that matter), that I would respond to either with love and kindness, just as my stake Sunday School president did with me.

(Photo credit: SL Tribune)

Supporting Sinners

Elder Clayton Christensen, then an area authority seventy, taught us in a stake conference a few years ago that maxim that the church is not a resort for the perfect, but a hospital for sinners. He said if we didn’t smell tobacco in our sacrament meeting, then we probably weren’t working hard enough to reach out to others (either in missionary work or reactivation).

King Benjamin taught a similar principle: our obedience to God’s commandments does not put him in our debt, ever. We are always in His debt; we are nothing; without the atonement, we are worthless (see Mosiah 4).

In our zeal to protect our home and family from evil (which we should do), how do we hate sin and love sinners? How can we judge (being sinners ourselves)? Mosiah 4 speaks of sharing our substance with those in need; does that extent to our sharing our love with fellow sinners who are also seeking a path home? I believe it does.

I remember when someone shared his love with me. I was a new Sunday School president just about the time Sunday School presidents were becoming less relevant. We had no more opening exercises. And soon teacher inservice would be phased out, as well. Being the young return missionary I was, I thought I knew all there was to know, and I resisted the efforts of my stake Sunday School president to support and train me. My rebellious attitude must have been obvious to him, but he was unflappable. Each time he visited our ward, he put his arm around me and told me how much he loved me, and told me how pleased he was with what I was doing.

Despite my pride, his love was genuine (and disarming). It was impossible for me to ignore it. And I remember it thirty years later.

It is easy for us to find fault with others, to find reasons not to relate, not to engage. But that’s not what the Savior taught us, is it?

But I say unto you which hear, Love your enemies, do good to them which hate you,

Bless them that curse you, and pray for them which despitefully use you.

And unto him that smiteth thee on the one cheek offer also the other; and him that taketh away thy cloke forbid not to take thy coat also.

Give to every man that asketh of thee; and of him that taketh away thy goods ask them not again.

And as ye would that men should do to you, do ye also to them likewise.

For if ye love them which love you, what thank have ye? for sinners also love those that love them.

And if ye do good to them which do good to you, what thank have ye? for sinners also do even the same.

And if ye lend to them of whom ye hope to receive, what thank have ye? for sinners also lend to sinners, to receive as much again.

But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil (Luke 6:27-35).

"Cleave Unto God"

Recently I came across this phrase in Jacob: “…and cleave unto God as he cleaveth unto you” (Jacob 6:5).

Jacob has already delivered his I-wish-I-didn’t-have-to-talk-about-this speech, and he already shared Zenock’s allegory of the olive trees.

His whole book seems to be about returning. Return from sin. Return from the diaspora. Come home to God.

In this verse, he reminds us that God already cleaves unto us. In the next sentence in this verse, he reminds us that God’s arm of mercy is extended toward us. (And all this prophetically spoken since the Atonement is still to come.)

How do I cleave unto God? Well, studying his word is a great place to start. I had gotten out of the habit of daily personal scripture study and a few weeks ago, egged on (inadvertently, I’m sure) by my teenaged son, I set about to re-read the Book of Mormon again. (I have no idea how many times I’ve read it, but this time is a “fast” read where I’m trying to read multiple chapters a day in order to get connections I don’t get when I go slowly.)

Daily prayer also helps. But real prayer – real communication, including listening for impressions that come in those quiet moments during and after prayer.

Obedience to the next commandment is important to me. Yes, I need to obey all the commandments, but I know that my spirit gets nudged from time to time about what I need to do next (like improving my scripture study a few weeks ago). It’s not so much keeping up the status quo (I haven’t been translated yet, so there’s got to be more I could do), but sorting out what should be next to do.

Living a life of love is probably related to obedience, and could nearly always be the next commandment for me. But it deserves particular mention. Loving my fellow man is Commandment #2, and King Benjamin and the Savior (among others) teach me that as I love my fellow man, I show my love to God. And that love, of course, is not reserved for strangers, but also for those closest to me.

I could go on all day, I suppose. But what I’d like to get to is this question: How do you cleave unto God?

A Nod to Valentine's Day: True Love

In a nod to the season, a comment on True Love:

I don't have a huge data sample but I've been fortunate to observe what I think is "true love".

I don't have to look much farther than my own marriage, but I see it in others' marriages, too, so I don't think I'm alone in what I'm about to write.

My lovely wife and I have been married almost 30 years (this coming June). That statistic is pretty cool, but not terribly unusual among my circle of friends (many of whom are not LDS). And there are lots of reasons for people to stay together through thick and thin, but the biggest reason we do, I think, is that we love each other.

When my wife and I were dating (we met at age 17 and started dating, saw one another every day from the time we met through our freshman year at BYU, wrote (but not every week) through my mission, and married when I came home. I had known her for about three weeks when I started to feel like she was "the one" for me. (In fairness, my lovely wife, more conservative than I was, took longer to be convinced. And even so, we didn't ever discuss long term commitments before my mission – not that we said we wouldn't, it just didn't come up.)

How did I know? Well, aside from just having a great time whenever she was around, I think it was that she made me want to be better than I would have been without her. I guess that might sound kind of sappy in a 1940's Hollywood Love Story kind of way, but it's true. (I used to joke with youth when I was in a position to do so that I married my wife because she was a seminary graduate. Though that wasn't strictly my thought process, the principle was right. I knew she was good and kind and she had graduated seminary (and I hadn't; maybe that's why she took longer to decide whether to take a chance on me…). I could tell that she was going where I wanted to go, and fortunately she let me come along with her.)

When my son got married last year, we sat in the kitchen of his bride's parents the day before the wedding, and I was telling the bride's dad that one of the reasons we were so happy about this wedding is that our son is just a better person when he's around his bride. Her dad looked at me and said, "We were just talking yesterday and observed the same thing about B."

So with my sample of two, I've counseled my other kids to look for someone who makes them better than they are. And someone for whom they do the same thing.

- Paul

PS: Feb 14 is also Chinese New Year. Xin nian kuai le!)

"Unconditional" Love?

In a priesthood meeting I attended while traveling last week, someone talked about the unconditional love we feel for our children, and how it is patterned after the unconditional love our Father in Heaven feels for us.

I had two issues with the statement, and felt strongly enough to derail the class for a few minutes to get them on the table. (It was ok – it was one of those weeks where the teacher hadn't shown up, so we were getting an impromptu lesson anyway, so I didn't feel like I was detracting too much.)

The first issue was that I remembered an Ensign article from Elder Nelson a number of years ago called Divine Love. (Ok, I didn't remember that it was called "Divine Love," and it appeared longer ago than I remembered, but I did remember the article.)

In that article, Elder Nelson says, "While divine love can be called perfect, infinite, enduring, and universal, it cannot correctly be characterized as unconditional. The word does not appear in the scriptures. On the other hand, many verses affirm that the higher levels of love the Father and the Son feel for each of us—and certain divine blessings stemming from that love—are conditional" (emphasis from the original).

The other thought I had was that I don't love my children all the same all the time. (Gasp!) Sometimes I get angry with one of my kids. Sometimes one of them hurts me or his or her mother, and it upsets me. And at that moment, I don't bubble over with love.

Now these two things are very different from one another. The first, taught by an apostle, is a clearer understanding of how God is (compared with how we want Him to be). I appreciate that he says that God's love is "universal," but not "unconditional." That says that it's available to everyone, but the results of that love, the blessings, are not for free.

In his article he then explains that the fruits of God's love are His blessings, and they are not meted out regardless of our behavior – those blessings are very much conditional upon our doing what we need to do in His eyes. Fortunately our Father is also merciful and grants us the opportunity to make corrections when we need to, and as soon as we do, says King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon, He blesses us.

The second –- my uneven love for my children -- is not a divine quality. It is the opposite of universal love, which I believe I should have for my children. If I really love them, then rather than getting angry and behaving badly (humanly, but still badly), I should allow them the consequences of their poor choices minus my not-so-righteous indignation. I might impose those consequences ("you came home late, so you can't use the car for a week") or someone else might ("you ran the red light; you pay the fine"), but allowing the consequence follows (I believe) the pattern of our Heavenly Father's love: we can learn from our mistakes.

Not to put too fine a point on it, but I don't think I can say I have universal love for my children if I'm angry at them. In the moment of anger, I don't feel love. I know some may gloss over this and say, "well of course you love them; you were just upset." My point is that when I'm in that moment of anger, it's not love I feel, no matter how much love I feel the rest of the time.

Well, of course I'm not perfect (and if you think I might be, just ask my 13-year old; he keeps a list, which was handed down to him from his older siblings…). And the Good News is I can change. And it's something I work at all the time. And that opportunity comes because of my Father's divine love for me.

- Paul