On Playing God

I did a workshop at our stake’s women’s conference, and I blogged about it at Real Intent (you can read that blog here).

The presentation was based on the 12-steps of the church’s Addiction Recovery Program which are, in turn, based on the 12 steps of Alcoholics Anonymous, which are, in turn, a straightforward way of applying the atonement to our lives.

The first three steps are all about our relationship with ourselves, God and other people. And they’re especially important for people who aren’t necessarily addicted.

One of the cornerstone doctrines of the gospel is agency – the ability that we have to act for ourselves, to make our own choices and enjoy (or suffer) the consequences of those choices. “God will force no man to heaven,” or so the hymn says.

In the first three steps of a 12-step program, once acknowledges his own powerlessness over his addiction (and, in the case of a program like AlAnon or Families Anonymous for co-dependents, over other people), the power of God to restore us, and the willingness to turn ourselves and our lives over to God.

For people who grow up reciting the first few Articles of Faith, this should be boilerplate stuff.  We believe in God the Eternal Father, His Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost; we believe we’ll be punished for our own sins and not Adam’s transgression; and we believe that through the Atonement of Christ all mankind may be saved by obedience to the laws and ordinances of the gospel. We are taught from our earliest years that we get to choose, that we are agents unto ourselves, and that the fact that we are here on earth is already proof of our having chosen well at least once.

And yet, most of us who grow to adulthood try to limit the agency of others at one time or another. After acceptable rules of persuasion fail, we try to force our friends or our enemies to do things our way as kids. As parents, we learn by trial and error how much we can force our children to behave. As spouses we learn, often through sad experience, that D&C 121 is right – we really can’t compel others to behave in a certain way.

I’ve heard some say that trying to control outcomes for others is trying to play God. But even God does not control the outcome. He offers a choice and we make a choice. Our choice determines the outcome. Of course God facilitates the choice, and the path back to Him if we choose poorly. After all He loves us and His grace extends to each of us if we choose to accept it.

As a parent, the hardest lessons I’ve learned have been the understanding that I must let go. Now a loving parent doesn’t hold a child out a third story window and then let go. Instead, the parent does all he can to teach, guide, direct, protect, make safe, and then he lets go. And even when a parent lets go, he doesn’t leave his child alone. Good parents establish rules and boundaries with real consequences so that children learn early that with choice comes accountability. And consistent and fair consequences often do a better job of teaching than any lecture Mom or Dad could give.

Now six of my seven children have approached that point at which they begin to separate from us. All kids do it (or should), usually in the mid-to-late teenage years. Some of the separations have been easier than others. Some of our kids have separated but maintained the standards and patterns they learned at home. Others couldn’t run for the exit fast enough. A few have separated in fits and starts – wanting to be independent, but not really wanting to be independent.

Our job as parents – impossible as it seems – is to prepare them to leave, not to prepare them to stay. I learned some time ago that I cannot judge my success as a parent by the choices my children make. But I have learned there are things I can do to help them learn to separate themselves from me. I can help them see consequences. I can help them think a little longer term than the end of the hour or day or week. I can engage them in conversation and invite them to formulate and express their opinions (even half-baked ones). I can help them identify their strengths and help them to reinforce those. (Chances are they know their weaknesses better than I do; I am learning I don’t need to point those out, but I can still help them to learn how to work through them if they want to.)

Basically, I do need to play God. He put us here with teachers, trainers, parents, prophets, friends and family to help us to learn to live separately from Him (so we can return to Him). Similarly, I need to help my children to arm themselves to live separately from me.

What do you think? What has worked for you in helping your children to be independent?

Tales from the Dark Side (of the moon, that is)

I wrote a while back about how teenagers (boys, especially) seem to go to the dark side of the moon during their adolescence. And by the dark side of the moon, I mean out of radio contact. And by out of radio contact, I mean they simply aren’t connecting with the things we parents think they need to connect with.


Sometimes the dark side of the moon and lack of radio contact means they don’t want to associate with parents and siblings (leave me alone!). Or they don’t want to live in a social society (leave me alone, and stay out of my room!). Or they know better than their parents (you just don’t get it!).

While out of radio contact, they will often question and challenge family norms and mores. They may challenge house rules and they may reject the faith of their fathers. (As Latter-day Saints we are sometimes pleased and even impressed when a young person does this and joins the church; we are horrified when one of our own does it and leaves.)

Parents, of course, wonder how to reach kids when they are out of radio contact. And I wish I could tell you how to do it. I can’t. But I can share some things I learned along the way. Last time I wrote about the need to fill our kids’ well so that when they are out of touch with us, they will still have some of “us” in reserve.

Here are three more ideas:

1. Use other voices (that is the voices of others, not becoming Mel Blanc, though if a Bugs Bunny impersonation gets their attention, go for it!). We rely on our friends, the parents of our kids’ friends, to reinforce lessons we teach our kids. This is true for our LDS and non-LDS friends. Of course as kids grow older and become more independent, it’s increasingly difficult to keep track of friends and their parents. We rely on church leaders and teachers to help. Studies the church has done have shown that seminary teachers have consistently scored at the top of the list of key influencers for those who have served missions. And we hope that good friends (in and out of the church) will also be a voice of reason for our kids. (Of course this last one is the most challenging, since our kids’ friends are all similar ages and may be in their own period of radio silence.)

2. We have also found that talking to the kids constantly helps. And listening. Whenever they want. I remember ten or eleven years ago when our youngest was an infant and our oldest kids were older teens. The baby would nurse and go to bed and then the older kids would suddenly want to talk to their mom into the wee hours of the morning. Frankly, I don’t know how my lovely wife survived those years of teenage boys and babies. But her constant willingness to talk and to listen (even when she hated what she heard) was a huge factor in our kids’ staying connected even as they separated from some of the things that were most important to us.

My oldest daughter went through a phase in which she did not talk to her mother. Sometimes for days. And my lovely wife would not know why. Sometimes I would come home from work and get the assignment to figure out why the cone of silence had descended and excluded my lovely wife. Fortunately, that period was very short for our daughter.

3. That experience points out another tool in our toolbox, namely that we both have roles to play. I don’t know if it’s Freudian or normal or if we’re victims of stereotyping, but the boys always had a better relationship with their mom in those years, and the girls have gone through periods of time in which they seem more willing to talk to me. We are very lucky to have both of us around to share the task of parenting, and sometimes one of us can do what the other can’t.

It took some time for me to learn that it was more important to me for my kids to want to be at my dining room table than on the bench next to me in sacrament meeting, but that has made a huge difference in how we related to our kids, especially those who have not followed us in church activity. (I’ve blogged about that here and here.)

Happy to hear your thoughts about how to communicate with those who are in radio silence.

UPDATE:  Ardis has posted a second installment on Vanguard Scouting.  The first section of the post does a nice job of explaining some of the signs of movement to the dark side of the moon.  You can find her post here.

Loaning my will to God

We sang one of my all-time favorite hymns in sacrament meeting yesterday, “God Loved Us So He Sent His Son.” As often happens, however, we did not sing my favorite verse, since it’s printed at the bottom of the hymn, outside the music. Verse four reads:

In word and deed he doth require
My will to his, like son to sire,
Be made to bend, and I, as son,
Learn conduct from the Holy One.

When still a fresh new apostle, President Packer made this comment in an address at BYU:

Perhaps the greatest discovery of my life, without question the greatest commitment, came when finally I had the confidence in God that I would loan or yield my agency to him – without compulsion or pressure, without any duress, as a single individual alone, by myself, no counterfeiting, nothing expected other than the privilege. In a sense, speaking figuratively, to take one’s agency, that precious gift which the scriptures make plain is essential to life itself, and say, ‘I will do as you direct,’ is afterward to learn that in so doing you possess it all the more” (Obedience, Brigham Young University Speeches of the Year [December 7, 1971], 4, quoted in A Guide to Addiction Recovery and Healing, p. 13).

As I discussed this concept of turning our will or agency over to God with some friends last week, some expressed their difficulty in doing so. One said, however, he finally had come to terms with the idea, knowing that he could at any time take it back again. Knowing that he still had a choice, he knew he had not lost his agency, but given his compliance with the Lord’s will freely, as Elder Packer describes.

It occurred to me that we lend our agency out all the time. We may lend it to a spouse or friend as we compromise for the sake of the relationship. We give it to the state who issues our driver’s license as we agree to obey traffic laws. Some of us may give our agency (even unwittingly) to addictions or bad habits.

Another friend told me once, “why wouldn’t you want God to direct your life?” Great question.

I can see times in my life where this principle has been easier than others. It’s easy to pray for God’s will when I’m pretty sure His will is moving in the same direction as mine. It’s much tougher to seek His will when I’ve been praying for a specific outcome for some time without clear results, and it finally occurs to me that He might want something different than I do, or that He might have another timetable.

When dealing with a concern with one of my children, I can remember praying for months for resolution – my resolution, that is: Take this burden; Heal him; Save him. The Lord was fully prepared to save my child (of course the Savior had already done so!), but not in the way I dictated, nor in the time I expected. I found I finally had to let go and allow God to work in His ways (which are not my ways).

King Benjamin reminds us that in order to put off the natural man, we can rely only on the atonement of Jesus Christ and become “as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father” (Mosiah 3:19).

My experience is that King Benjamin is right. Time has demonstrated to me that my God is merciful and kind. Father (in Heaven) knows best.

Addiction and Agency

Last week I posted a rather negative response to a Family Home Evening on addiction presented by LDS Living. In an effort to add something positive to the conversation, I offer the following:

This is a guest post of sorts. My wife is a member of our stake Relief Society presidency and gave a brief presentation based on the following notes to the sisters at our stake’s ward conferences earlier this year. This is Part I. Part II will follow on Friday. I’ve edited the notes for reading.

I have been asked to talk about a topic that is serious in nature and much more common around us than we would like to believe. It has been called the number one health problem in the United States today and many of you have had either personal experience with or someone you love has had to deal with the pain of this disease. This disease is so vile and pernicious that it not only does it affect one’s physical health but will also seriously damage one’s emotional and spiritual health and some of that damage can spread to family members. The name of the disease is addiction.

While the damage and pain experienced by those caught in its snare can be massive, there is hope for healing. I will leave the physical healing to medical doctors but today I want to discuss how those who suffer emotionally and spiritually from addiction can find healing from the One who can heal all wounds –our Savior, Jesus Christ.

What is addiction?

To try understand this disease let’s begin by looking at a story that Elder Ballard told in last October’s General Conference :

The goal of the fly fisherman is to catch trout through skillful deception...He will often craft by hand the lures he uses. He knows these artificial insects embedded with tiny hooks need to be a perfect deception because the trout will identify even the slightest flaw and reject the fly.

The use of artificial lures to fool and catch a fish is an example of the way Lucifer often tempts, deceives, and tries to ensnare us.

Lucifer knows our … weaknesses, and tempts us with counterfeit lures which, if taken, can cause us to be yanked from the stream of life into his unmerciful influence.

Satan is the father of lies and will try to make evil seem good to ensnare us.

One of our greatest gifts from God is our free agency. It was part of the plan of salvation and is required to show obedience to our Father in Heaven. In His plan He could give us mortal bodies but we have to choose to follow His commandments to be able to be blessed by Him in this life and return to Him after we die.

Our free will is the only thing we truly have to give to the Lord.

One of the chief ways Satan lures us to give away our agency is through addictions.

Elder Ballard said:

The battle over man’s God-given agency continues today. Satan and his minions have their lures all around us, hoping that we will falter and take his flies so he can reel us in with counterfeit means. He uses addiction to steal away agency. According to the dictionary, addiction of any kind means to surrender to something, thus relinquishing agency and becoming dependent on some life-destroying substance or behavior.

How does this work? Elder Ballard continued:

Researchers tell us there is a mechanism in our brain called the pleasure center. When activated by certain drugs or behaviors, it overpowers the part of our brain that governs our willpower, judgment, logic, and morality. This leads the addict to abandon what he or she knows is right. And when that happens, the hook is set and Lucifer takes control. Satan knows how to exploit and ensnare us with artificial substances and behaviors of temporary pleasure.

This process has been likened to an allergic reaction. Once the brain is exposed to the chemical reaction it changes. Engaging in the addiction literally changes the brain’s chemical function.

Elder Russell M Nelson summarized this affects one’s free agency: “Addiction surrenders…freedom to choose. Through chemical means, one can literally become disconnected from his or her own will” (“Addiction or Freedom”, Ensign November 1988, 6).

Addiction can take many forms. Drugs (including prescription abuse), alcohol, tobacco, eating disorders, gambling and pornography are a few examples. People who are inclined to addiction may suffer from a number of different addictions.

Once the addiction sets in it is a bondage that entraps the person. Addiction is not just a bad habit to be conquered by willpower alone. Caught in this bondage the person can become so dependent on a behavior or substance that they no longer see how to abstain from it.

Telling a person in addiction that if they really cared they would stop destroying their lives is like telling a person who is sick with pneumonia not to cough. Until they get the appropriate treatment the problems will persist.

Elder Ballard counsels, “Medical research describes addiction as “a disease of the brain.” This is true, but I believe that once Satan has someone in his grasp, it also becomes a disease of the spirit.”

Coming in Part II – Addition is a Family Disease; How to Find Help

An addendum on agency

I've been reading Prince and Wright’s book David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism, and Chapter 12 makes pretty clear that during the strong anti-communist period of the mid-twentieth century, rhetoric in the church, and even from President McKay certainly did equate free agency with some level of political freedom, which seems to contradict my latest post on agency.

In General Conference after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President McKay (then a counselor in the First Presidency) said, “To deprive an intelligent human being of his free agency is to commit the crime of the ages.... So fundamental in man’s eternal progress is his inherent right to choose, that the Lord would defend it even at the price of war” (Conference Report, April 1942, 71-73, quoted in Prince, 280).

That said, I still believe the scriptural reference to agency has little to do with political freedom and more to do with man's innate ability to choose, as in this report about President McKay (then church president) in the Los Angeles Times points out:

"People under Communist domination will some day rise against their rulers, the world leader of the Mormon church predicted today. White-haried Elder David O. McKay, Salt Lake City, said free will – the freedom to choose between right and wrong – is the people’s most valuable possession. ‘No power on earth,’ he said, ‘can take that freedom away’” (“Head of Mormons Predicts Revolt in Red Countries,” Los Angeles Times, April 26, 1954, quoted in Prince, 292). As Prince and Wright observe, President McKay’s prophecy was true.

The second statement suggests that free will, free agency, transcends political constraints as I suggested in my original post.

That said, given the history of that period, it's not hard to see how some members might also make similar arguments to today’s that government policy which is seen to limit political freedoms might also be interpreted as limiting free agency. They can make that argument, but I do not agree with them.

On agency

I've been engaged in a discussion of agency on another blog, Eric Nielsen's Small and Simple. Thanks, Eric for the discussion and for getting my thoughts churning.

Eric's blog looks at the terms "free agency" and "moral agency." The phrase "moral agency" showed up in three talks in the November 1990 General Conference (President Faust, Elder Packer and Elder Nelson), and in 2006, Elder Christopherson spoke to the term "moral agency" at a BYU devotional (and was subsequently quoted in the Ensign last year):

“In years past we generally used the term free agency. That is not incorrect. More recently we have taken note that free agency does not appear in the scriptures. They talk of our being 'free to choose' and 'free to act' for ourselves (2 Nephi 2:27; 10:23; see also Helaman 14:30) and of our obligation to do many things of our own 'free will' (D&C 58:27). But the word agency appears either by itself or with the modifier moral: 'That every man may act in doctrine and principle … according to the moral agency which I have given unto him, that every man may be accountable for his own sins in the day of judgment' (D&C 101:78; emphasis added). When we use the term moral agency, we are appropriately emphasizing the accountability that is an essential part of the divine gift of agency. We are moral beings and agents unto ourselves, free to choose but also responsible for our choices” (“Moral Agency,” ENSIGN, June 2009, pp. 45-53, from a BYU devotional delivered January 2006).

I'm a simple guy, and I prefer the simpler term agency, as defined at lds.org:

"Agency is the ability and privilege God gives us to choose and to act for ourselves. Agency is essential in the plan of salvation. Without it, we would not be able to learn or progress or follow the Savior. With it, we are 'free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil' (2 Nephi 2:27)."

Agency relates to the description of Adam and Eve after they had partaken of the fruit of the tree of knowledge: “And it is given unto them to know good from evil; wherefore they are agents unto themselves, and I have given unto you another law and commandment” (Moses 6:56).

As such, it seems there are some things agency is and some things it isn't. Agency describes our present state, where we as humans can and do make choices about how we live and what we do. We choose to keep the commandments or not. We choose to obey the law of the land or not. We choose to marry or not. Those choices are made possible because we are agents unto ourselves, because we have agency.

Agency (Free, Moral, or just plain Agency) does not suggest that I should be free to do whatever I want without consequence. It does not suggest that less government is better. It does not suggest that more government is better. It does not mean that teenagers do not need to listen to their parents. Nor does it mean that I can justify ignoring the commandments of God.

In fact, because I have agency, I am accountable for the choices I make. When I choose to act in one way or another, I also choose the consequences of that action. My agency does not free me from the consequence. And the imposition of a consequence does not limit my agency in any way. In fact, I would argue that the imposition of a consequence increases my agency, because it gives weight and meaning to my choices.

When Adam chose to partake of the fruit, he did so knowing the consequences of his choice, good and bad, and then chose. And we can do the same.

Submitting to God's will

Agency is a key tenet of Mormon belief. We teach that even in the premortal existence we were free to choose the plan advanced by the Savior or the one from Lucifer. The former allowed us to come to this earth, make mistakes, enjoy the blessings of an atoning sacrifice, and potentially return to our Father in Heaven. The latter plan would have forced all to obey (not specified how) and demanded the glory for everyone’s return to our Father be given to the author of the plan, Lucifer.

In that struggle of ideas came the war in heaven described in scripture and in remarkable poetry (See Milton’s Paradise Lost). As actors in that war, we choose sides, and, according to prophetic teachings, are here because we sided with the Lord in that struggle. Those who sided with Lucifer were denied bodies and therefore future progression in the Plan of Salvation.

Now that we are here, we are to learn faith and obedience; we are to submit to our Father in Heaven’s will for us. To some that decision seems a paradox, as we are apparently asked to give up that agency in favor of submitting to God’s authority.

The key is that in so surrendering our will to God’s we act of our own volition. The Book of Mormon teaches we are free to choose (2 Nephi 2:27), but also that the natural man (acting only in our own best interest) is an enemy to God and that overcoming the natural man requires us to yield (my emphasis) to God’s way in order to find true and lasting happiness (Mosiah 3:19).

Some find following the commandments to be restrictive suggesting that freedom should allow us to do whatever we want. Mature thinkers will see spiritual adolescence in this way of thinking. Young drivers may also not see the need to follow speed limits until they’ve paid a fine or two, or, worse yet, have injured themselves or others. Mature spiritual thought suggests the trade off between a life run riot and the blessings of obedience is significant, and that the blessed life is the better choice.

Others wrongly suppose that “I am what I am” (what I call the Popeye defense) and I cannot change. If that’s so, then the atoning sacrifice of Jesus Christ was for nothing. But the atoning sacrifice of the Savior WAS for something, and that something is the gift that we may change, that we may overcome our natural man, that we may be more driven by instinct, that we may learn a better way, His way, that we may prepare to return home to our loving Father.

My experience is that God’s way works. It brings me more joy, more peace, and ultimately, more of what matters the most. And that is in this life, excluding whatever benefit there may be in the life hereafter.

- Paul