Wrote a poem in sacrament meeting today. Sometimes the mind wanders and I had some images in my head. Though I prefer to read poems that rhyme, it didn’t feel necessary to me with this one. I dunno. Anyway, it’s about stars. Sort of.
The Eternal Rounds
With His gravity, He bends The materials inward Until they amass And grow greater and greater Until they make a gravity of their own. He lights fires Until those fires breathe fire Until every fountain of flame shoots out ten fountains more. Crafting forges within forges He gathers all fire, ore, and dust, Bending all around him, Into the shape of His name, Burning and bending In one eternal round.
The unblinking beacon blinds And heals, like grace. The unquenchable flame warns And warms, like hearthfire. The unceasing radiation consumes, Yet illuminates every hidden thing. Unapproachable yet indispensable, Unimaginable yet unimaginable without, Impossible to withstand, Yet the essence of every living thing. These uncountable paradoxes bend into being At the curl of His fingers, And the command of His voice, And in His image.
Then he turns to us, The bleary-eyed and just-born. What is it to bend materials who have no will of their own? They are my play, You are my work, You will take my time, my effort, Bending you with my love, The curl of my long-suffering, And soft sounds of my voice, Creating a universe of constellations Bound by sealing lines, Forming eternal shapes, That bend others still, With a gravity of your very own.
The law of the harvest is God’s law. We are promised that if we sow good, we shall also reap good for our reward. We cannot confuse the law of the harvest with Newton’s third law: for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction. These are both true laws, but operating on different planes of reality. Indeed, different planes of space and time.
We often expect in life to receive a consequence for every choice. Indeed, we do. But our choices that we make as we move through the physical universe are not the same kind of choices that we make when moving through the spiritual universe. I do not get spiritual consequences the way a ball sails through the air because I throw it, the way I punch a wall and feel pain in my knuckles, the way I shout loudly and annoy the people around me. This is the lower law, and it is the law that dictates we all deserve physical death and pain and failure in our lives. It is what we physically deserve, and it happens, but it is not what we deeply deserve, which is why God ultimately redeems us from it.
God’s law, the law of the harvest, is based on what we deeply deserve, and it stretches out across time. It is based on our wills, our innermost desires. What we consistently try to bring about, God will ultimately grant. The nature of the harvest is eternal—it is almost always something within ourselves that changes. We are the only thing that truly persists over eternity.
It is easy to make a spiritual choice and expect God to grant us an immediate physical result. But this is to make God an acrobat, our own personal butler, who takes orders and does tricks at our whims. Instead God sees our deeply expressed wills and puts forth His hand to help draw those righteous desires into reality. That can be confusing. We can’t read life like we did as infants, learning, basic cause and effect. We must pay attention over time and learn to read the Spirit in the language he speaks to us. And we must be patient. God will sometimes bless us in small moments with tender mercies, but His hand is most effectively seen when seeing our life narratives over time. Not because God is not in those small moments, but because it is difficult for us to make sense of them at the time.
Say we plant seeds in a field. In the lower perspective, we might think God is punishing us with the immediate consequence of dirt under our fingernails, sweat caking our bodies, and an aching back. Then suddenly it rains and we are angry at God for cursing us with a storm when we’re trying to do something good.
But seeing it with the higher perspective, we understand the rain as God’s helpful hand in helping our fields grow. And the pain and filth we incur while working let us enjoy the opposing cleanliness we feel after that rain washes us off and the satisfaction at a job well done. In the end, we’ll be blessed with a full harvest and also an intimate acquaintance with God’s world, which has become our own world. We have become a little more like God in his relationship with his creations.
It is incredibly difficult to see God’s hand in the day to day. In my experience, He almost always does something that surprises me, something I wouldn’t have expected, and when I try to write His side of the story with my own paltry pen, I’m consistently disappointed. Be patient through tribulations, because temporary setbacks are just turbulence. The plane is not really going to crash. Just hold onto God’s hand, sow your own seeds the best you can, and don’t base your understanding of God with your own finite perception of time—especially when the story God is writing is one of eternity.
The following is a brief dialogue between two characters in a play I recently saw.
Gerald: Ellie, have you ever been on a plane that you think is going to crash?
Ellie: Besides my relationship with my ex-boyfriend?
Gerald: It’s terrifying. I was flying from Kansas. The plane is shaking. The wings flapping like they’re about to break off, and all I can think about is the new tie I just bought. Should I take it off and put it in the little throw-up bag so my tie will be safe? So that’s what I did.
Ellie: You saved your tie?
Gerald: We all do crazy things in stressful situations. The plane wasn’t going to crash—it was turbulence.
I want to talk about that turbulence today. We all feel it in our lives every day. Whether we steered the plane wrong, or a sudden wind overpowered us, sometimes it feels like we are going to crash.
I have bipolar disorder.
For those of you who don’t know, that means that I experience higher highs in life and lower lows than most people. My emotions can be a roller coaster sometimes. I feel intense amounts of energy, like I can conquer the world and overcome any problem, and a few minutes later I’ll feel the weight of a mountain on my heart and like Gerald in the turbulent airplane, I can’t process the idea that my emotional pain could ever end, that I could ever feel cheerful again.
It can be very hard to feel God’s love in those dark times. In fact, sometimes it’s impossible. I feel abandoned. Forsaken. Totally alone.
I think, What’s going to happen, Heavenly Father? How can this possibly work out?
Recently we read in the New Testament the story of Christ’s apostles on the boat in the storm on Galilee. The rookie disciples were afraid for their lives and their Master, their Savior, was sleeping down below. Sleeping! They rushed to wake him, saying,
“Master, carest thou not that we perish?”
Do you hear that? It’s not just, “Save us, please!” Their hearts are sinking lower than their ship. They were scared for more than just their lives. They felt abandoned. Forsaken. Totally alone, like their Master, in whom they’ve placed absolute trust, doesn’t love them anymore. Like little children, they just wanted to know that they were loved. That God was watching them and that he cared about their pain, their fears, their doubts. They wanted to know that they mattered.
Like children, they had so much to learn. And this experience was part of that instruction, as it is for all of us who hear the story today. When Jesus did wake up and say, “O ye of little faith,” do you think it was a rebuke? I don’t think so. He does offer a rebuke right afterward, but it is for the sea and the wind, not his disciples.
Personally, I see and hear him tenderly crouching down to reassure them that all they were feeling was turbulence. And embrace them as the first of his little flock.
I have felt those moments at the end of my storms of mental health. Inevitably, those black clouds part and I feel light and warmth and peace again, and the distance between myself and God lessens. The ocean of mortal life that moved us has been stilled.
But some of life’s storms we cannot blame on the Master sleeping. Sometimes it is our own choices that take us away from God. Sin, transgression, curiosity, etc. And when we put ourselves outside of God’s protection, He’s going to respect our agency and let natural consequence follow. The LDS author of some of my favorite books, Chris Heimerdinger, is fond of saying, “If we find ourselves farther away from God than we were yesterday, who moved?”
This isn’t new, of course. Becoming distanced from God and heavenly things has been an element of mortal living for as long as human history. Adam and Eve were first, being cast out of the Garden of Eden and into the telestial world as a result of their transgression—a choice that we teach was not only understandable, but essential to our progression!
Indeed, God anticipated that we would be curious about everything there is to see on this planet. That’s the way He made our bodies. The world is enticing! Fascinating! Even delightful! So many sensations and experiences to explore! And so goes the hymn, “Prone to wander, Lord I feel it! Prone to leave the God I love!”
I love that line because I think it’s so important to understand our own frailty. I tend to believe that more often than not, our supposed fallen state is a feature, not a bug. We don’t have to be angry at ourselves for having a tendency to explore and make mistakes. After all, if God never expected us to get dirt underneath our fingernails, He wouldn’t have put us on a planet made of dirt.
That’s why the next line in that hymn is just as important. “Prone to leave the God I love…So here’s my heart: take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above.”
That, brothers and sisters, is a covenant.
We’ve heard a lot about what the prophets call the covenant-path lately. So often that I don’t think I’m alone in starting to kind of mentally blink when I hear it, so I don’t really hear it at all. Like it’s one of those corporate buzzwords. Covenant-path, covenant-path, covenant-path.
But I read some things recently that have helped me understand it a lot better.
The following is from God Will Prevail by Kerry Muhlestein:
“The covenant path is really about our relationship with God; it is a path to a perfect relationship of full unity. Throughout history, people have either been in a covenant relationship with God, which defines them as His people, or they have not, which means they are not His people. Clearly everyone is a child of God, but the choice to be part of a covenant enhances and changes that relationship.
“God will not abandon His relationship with those who have forged such a bond with Him. In fact, all those who have made a covenant with God have access to a special kind of love and mercy. In Hebrew this covenantal love is called hesed.”
Brother Muhlstein goes on to describe the difficulty of translating this word into English. The King James Version of the Bible renders it as “lovingkindness,” all one word, and sometimes “mercy.” But hesed means more than that. It is exclusively used in terms of God’s covenant with His children.
“Because God has hesed for those who have covenanted with Him, He will love them in such a way that, no matter what, He will continue to work with them and offer them chances to change and return to Him when they stray.”
Hebrew scholar Gordon R Clark speaks of hesed as “a deep and enduring commitment between two persons or parties, by one who is able to render assistance to the needy party who in the circumstances is unable to help him- or herself.”
Hesed is described as uniquely divine, an emotion so deep that only God can feel it in its fullness.
This is what I see when I think back on our reading of the Old Testament last year. How many times did Israel rebel, go astray, repent, return to God, and then rebel and go astray again? And how many times did God send down prophets and plagues to return their gaze and their hearts to Him? How many times did Israel stone those prophets, or ignore those plagues?
Across hundreds of years, God never gave up on Israel, his covenant people. And He won’t give up on those who’ve made covenants with Him in our modern day—also His covenant people.
He cannot. He is bound.
“This loyal love means that God will always keep working with His covenant people. It means that when they stray, He will do whatever it takes to bring them back. It might be that they respond easily to His pleadings to return. In other circumstances, He may have to bring them back the hard way. Regardless, God will loyally and lovingly extend merciful chances to those for whom He has hesed.”
Adhering to the covenant-path is not easy in a world covered in storm clouds. If you personally have not felt your covenants tested and felt the world rattle and shake around you, buckle up, because life is going to take you there, and God is going to prove us herewith as to our covenants.
Even Brother Joseph, who saw God, who saw angels and visions of heaven, felt abandoned at times. He felt distance too, and sometimes when he prayed in the darkest circumstances he did not immediately feel God’s voice pierce the silence. He cried out in his loneliness, O God, where art thou? Where are you hiding? Why are you letting such terrible things happen? Don’t you love us anymore?
Sometimes it feels like all we can see around us is in this storm. We see the waves wash over the deck, wash away our day’s catch, maybe even wash away our good friends who perhaps weren’t holding onto the covenants tight enough. We might even start to slip, and in the face of the storm simply surrender, because it looks too hard, and the battle seems like it’s never going to end. If we cannot see our Savior right in front of us, then maybe, we think, He really doesn’t care if we perish. Maybe He’s not there at all. Maybe the depths of the ocean is where we belong.
Would Christ follow us there? Carest He not that we perish?
Perhaps the depths of the ocean is where Christ already is, knowing our frailty, and waiting with arms outstretched, ready to embrace again if we would only swim towards Him and keep or remake our covenants.
In taking covenants we express our trust that God sends us turbulent times for a reason, that the sun still shines above those black clouds, and acknowledging that our vision is limited where His is not. And so we hold tight to the iron rod and let Him prevail. Even if our present wish is not immediately granted, He does still promise us in the meantime peace, hope, and abundant love—and will guide us along, even if we can’t even tell we’re going somewhere.
The family of the brother of Jared knew many of these feelings. They set out on their ocean voyage to the promised land and gave themselves to God, surrendering their limited mortal vision to His promises. It was a terrifying voyage. They felt winds and crashing waves. Their barges were tossed to and fro, and even cast deep underwater.
You think they never felt terror? You think they ever asked in that childlike way, What’s going to happen, Heavenly Father? How can this possibly work out?
They didn’t even have an indication of progress. For the first 343 days of their journey, every time they poked their heads out, it looked the same, just ocean, all around. 343 days! Only on the 344th did they finally see land. The Promised Land, that God knew was there from the beginning. God had made a covenant with them, and both sides kept it.
The scriptures point out that it was the ceaseless furious winds that literally blew them “toward the promised land.” The storms were how God kept his promises! Our own trials can be vehicles that take us closer to our goals and God if we let Him prevail and strive to keep to the covenant path.
Whether we are separated from our spiritual home by our own choices, by life circumstances, by illness or mental health, God is ceaselessly engaged in the work of bringing home His covenant people, of gathering Israel, even if the process is frightening or painful.
And it has to be sometimes. As the hymn says, “Nearer, my God, to thee, even if it be a cross that raiseth me.” As if we are sometimes lifted on our own cross next to Jesus.
Fortunately, the covenant-path, like the iron rod that leads to the tree of life, is something we can rest on, not just follow. We are bound to need rest from time to time, lest we keep walking till we faint or running till we are weary. Our endurance will sometimes fail and we’ll get that dirt underneath our nails, on our face, in our hair. We will feel, like Brother Joseph, imprisoned by our trials.
Thankfully, it is rare that God ever truly judges us in this life. That’s not what this life is for. This life is for second chances. For third, fourth, fifth chances. A hundred chances, seventy times seven times seven. Israel had that many chances to repent and become clean. Why shouldn’t we? We are God’s covenant people, too. As His children, we are the point and purpose of this world, not some peripheral hobby God engages with when He has some spare time. We might feel forgotten by Christ, our Jesus. And sometimes, we’ll forget Him. But how can he forget us? As the scriptures tell us, He has engraven us on the palms of His hands. The very hands with which He makes covenants with us in His temple.
When we make our covenants, and break them, and remake them, whether it’s in the temple or the chapel or kneeling at your bed or on altars atop a mountain, we are binding our fates together, ours and Heavenly Father’s. We are sealing our hearts with His. And He will know where to find us, wherever we are.
I want to close with a story that I think illustrates this. You may have read it before. It’s supposedly a children’s story, but I think if we listen carefully, it’s for all of us. It’s called The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown.
Once there was a little bunny who wanted to run away. So he said to his mother, “I am running away!”
“If you run away,” said his mother, “I will run after you, for you are my little bunny.”
“If you run after me,” said the little bunny, “I will become a fish in a trout stream, and I will swim away from you.”
“If you become a fish in a trout stream,” said his mother, “I will become a fisherman, and I will fish for you.”
“If you become a fisherman,” said the little bunny, “I will become a rock on the mountain high above you.”
“If you become a rock on the mountain high above me,” said his mother, “I will become a mountain-climber and I will climb to where you are.”
“If you become a mountain climber,” said the little bunny, “I will be a crocus in a hidden garden.”
“If you become a crocus in a hidden garden,” said his mother, “I will be a gardener, and I will find you.”
“If you are a gardener and find me,” said the little bunny, “I will be a bird and fly away from you.”
“If you become a bird and fly away from me,” said his mother, “I will be a tree that you come home to.”
“If you become a tree,” said the little bunny, “I will become a little sailboat and I will sail away from you.”
“If you become a sailboat and sail away from me,” said his mother, “I will become the wind and blow you where I want you to go.”
“If you become the wind and blow me where you want me to go,” said the little bunny, “then I will become a little boy and run into a house.”
“If you become a little boy and run into a house,” said the mother, “I will become your mother, and catch you in my arms and hug you.”
“Shucks,” said the little bunny. “I might just as well stay where I am and be your little bunny.”
And so he did.
“Have a carrot,” said the mother bunny.
I know our burdens are heavy, brothers and sisters. Take Christ’s yoke upon you, make covenants with Him, and He will give you rest.
Two or three years ago I learned that my father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s. From my limited interactions with him, he seemed okay at first. Slips of memory here and there. A few months ago, things plummeted.
I wasn’t up close and personal with him all the time so I didn’t see the depths of it, not for some time. Not like my poor mother, who had to see it, unblinking, and live with it every second of every hour of every day.
Death is to be avoided until it is inevitable, and then we must look it squarely in the eye. It was only in the last year that I really got to see the effects of this horrible disease, and it was agonizing. You have to internalize the truth very quickly: this is not one of those things that gets better over time. It only ever gets worse, and you can’t hope otherwise.
But I think my pain and grief have been the easier to bear compared to my mother, for whom there was no escape or time to think about other things, and to my brothers and sisters, all of whom live out of state. I saw the decline over time, but for them…
Well, when they finally saw him, it was a shock. Between the last time they visited and now, my father has become nigh unrecognizable.
Not in appearance—he continues to look like Dad. Older, in his late seventies, but I know that face, that expression, that posture. And that’s the problem. He looked so familiar. You only realized something was wrong by the things he would say.
He’d be sitting back in his recliner, maybe watching something on TV, and then say something that…well, was plainly absurd. Things that came out of nowhere. Then things that were not only obviously untrue, but extremely hurtful. Not his fault, but terrible nonetheless. Like the times when he did not recognize my mother, and wondered angrily what this woman was doing in his house.
Some of the absurdities were so in contrast with the image of my father that’s been burned into my brain from childhood that it was almost comical. I even laughed once or twice! There was no glee; I didn’t enjoy it, it was just the collision of reality and delusion that forced out a few chuckles like a reflex in my knee. But I hate myself for it afterwards.
It was those moments that really taught me about this disease and made me realize, in the full heat of the furnace, what my father and I—and my mother and my brothers and sisters—were about to go through as this roller coaster crested its final hill, about to plummet one last time.
There’s very little to say goodbye to, now. Last time I saw him, just yesterday, he remembered I was his son, but not my name. Luckily I was able to see him with my sister there. She hadn’t been here with him in person since before the diagnosis. There was always a little distance between me and her, just as with all my older siblings, a little of that older-looking-down-on-baby-brother dynamic. (Or maybe that’s just how I perceived it.) But in that meeting, I felt echoes of another event that I never forgot.
My grandfather’s funeral took place on my birthday in 2001. My dad’s dad. I have a vivid memory of rounding a corner and suddenly seeing Grandpa Silvester there in the casket. There’s nothing like that experience. I simply burst into tears.
Words cannot bring a grief to life as swiftly as seeing the empty shell that shouldn’t be empty. The padded lining and the stillness and the open lid that is just thirsting to clamp its eternal jaws shut—it just levels you, wrecking every wall your mind ever built up against painful news. I sobbed, but I didn’t sob alone. My sister was there. We just held each other and cried. The shock had hit us both.
And now, twenty-one years later, we shared what could be referred to as the inevitable sequel to that moment. We spent a couple of hours in the nursing home talking to each other right next to our dad, who didn’t really register that we were having a conversation, even when it was about him and his ex-wife who had left him and broke his heart. We talked in great part to jointly ignore the elephant in the room. It was a long time before we really got into the emotional stuff. And I had never seen my sister that vulnerable before. Not since Grandpa’s funeral.
Throughout the conversation, I held onto my dad’s forearm, his left forearm, as long as I could. It had struck me how little physical contact I have had with him in my life. He wasn’t a hugger. More of a pat-on-the-head kind of dad. But I knew I would have so few opportunities to touch him again, to really know him in the way that I did as a baby.
I can’t hold my two-year-old Peter enough. I hold him and touch him and play with his hair all the time. I never want to forget it. I never want to forget my dad. Many aspects of him, I will forget. But I’m determined to log at least a few tactile memories while he’s still here. I got to know that forearm pretty well. It might be one of the first things I check when I see him again on the other side.
Back when he was first diagnosed, I wrote down an observation: as a Christian, as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, it was time to find out what I really believed of my religion, deep down in my gut.
At the time I knew what I thought I believed. Don’t we all? Resurrection! Not a hair on his head is lost! Perfect, celestial bodies that will never break down. We’ll see him again. No need to worry, no need to fret. This isn’t a goodbye, just a see-you-later!
Now I get to see the facts. It’s not theory anymore. It’s not vague, formless principle. It’s the stillness of his eyes. It’s the name he gave me that he can no longer recall without prompting. It’s the wrinkled, pock-marked skin of his forearm. And it’s the temple clothes he wore as an endowment officiator that he will be buried in—that are now hanging in my closet, ready to perform their last sacred duty.
Do I really believe in all that stuff?
At the time I wrote it, I didn’t know how much time he’d have left. I think I got a year or two more out of him than I guessed. I had that much extra time to think about that question. To let it wash around inside me, be tested and tried, and, frankly, be answered.
The visual evidence against this gospel still hounds me. Seeing him decay, forget his wife, do nothing but sit in his wheelchair in the dining area of the nursing home with only a modicum of recognition of a world around him—do I still really believe in it? Do I really think it’s going to happen? That everything will magically work out in the end?
Like I said, I think I got the easier job between my mother and my out-of-state siblings. I got to see it and accept it slowly over time. Not easy, but easier. I could digest it gradually, and expand my spiritual horizons not just of the Resurrection, but the entire plan of salvation.
So I’ve arrived at an answer: yes, I really do believe it.
It will be different when it finally happens. Just imagining him in a coffin right now, wrapped forever in clothes that are now sitting harmlessly in my closet, is summoning up new and unwelcome emotions. The truth is that the final test of my testimony can’t be passed until that moment comes. That’s when I will have to deal with not only my own emotions, but the plight of my mother, for whom I already feel the admonition of Christ to John: take care of her. Nothing is ever easy, even with a heart full of faith.
But as horrible as this is, it is not new. This is a bridge every human being must cross. It is simply our turn. Having a testimony does not cancel out the trials inherent in this world. It was designed for a reason. This is the same passage every child of God who has ever lived has had to go through. It is not an injustice. President Nelson commanded us recently to “Let God prevail.” Accepting the plan of salvation means accepting this part of the plan. And I have internalized that message.
So right now, after all that I’ve seen and felt, I do believe in the gospel of Jesus Christ. I do believe in the Resurrection. I do believe all things will be restored, and I hope that includes the hairs of the mustache he wore in the 80s and 90s that I remember so clearly.
I have also gained a new layer of testimony of what this will mean not just for me, but for him. Frankly, when I remember what death really is, I am overjoyed for my father. I almost envy him! My dad—is done! He’s at the finish line! He made it! He made it through 78 years of this mortal furnace. The full gauntlet. Mistakes, imperfections, whatever; the Atonement will make up for those. He did what was asked and now he has nothing to worry about, ever again. No deadlines, no debts, no more impossible problems to solve. His trial is about to end. The test is over. And he passed it.
Not all of us do. Everyone dies, but how many have cause to feel triumphant at the end? That my dad was faithful to the end is a cause of great joy to me, to his wife and children. If we all die, isn’t that the way to do it? Suffering ends, but the soul goes on. Relationships go on. We’ll miss him, but we miss him already now. I won’t have that forearm to hold, but I also have my own family to worry about and work for. I want my Peter to one day be able to do the same for me, to care for me the same way I care for my dad.
I can’t let myself worry about the past. I believe God will collect all the ghosts, all the memories, all that we’ve ever left behind us in the dust as we blaze new paths forward in our own wilderness, and have them waiting for us in the next life, only filled with new life by the breath of God.
Yes, I believe it. Every promise God and His prophets have ever issued. I hope I can say that again when the final moment comes. At the funeral to myself, after the funeral, whenever the sadness hits.
It’s not done. The test isn’t over. My dad is still alive. And even after all I’ve just typed, a horrible thought came up that I’d forgotten about. My dad won’t be around to see my first novel published.
My dad was driving me home from high school. We were on Pine Hollow Road, right about to stop at the intersection next to Highland Elementary. My dad informed me that if I got a 93 on a World Civ essay that I didn’t even study for, it means I must be a good writer. The thought hadn’t occurred to me. It never left.
I guess he saw one book published. I don’t even know if he ever read The Hero Doctrine. I don’t really care. I just wanted him to stick around long enough to hold a novel with my name on the front. I prayed for that. Several times.
The doctrine doesn’t tie up all the threads in a nice tidy bow. Not in this life. Even accepting every facet of the gospel doesn’t heal the scars of this place. There will be regrets. Missed opportunities. Broken dreams.
So I suppose it’s still a matter of faith. Being willing to believe. It’s not a perfect knowledge, and that I don’t know how it will all get resolved makes it even more maddening. That’s what faith is all about. It brings us back to the abstract, when the pain we feel is so very real.
But the first father I want to see on the other side is actually my heavenly one, not my earthly dad. I picture myself rushing to my Heavenly Father to hug Him, to cry, to hit him hard on the chest and dissolve into tears as he holds me. I even picture Him saying sorry, over and over again. That there had to be so much pain and grief and disappointment down there in mortality.
But then he’ll point his finger, and I’ll follow it, and there they are. My dad, my mom. My Uncle David who I never got to meet, and Elder Neal A. Maxwell, the pair from whom I was named. Everyone else, too. Everyone I ever had to say goodbye to.
Many years ago I stumbled over a question and fell face-first in the mud: why faith? Why is faith the first and most important attribute God asks us to develop? That word and concept seems to be everywhere in the scriptures and manuals and talks but I didn’t feel we’d ever gotten a fundamental look. After all is said and done on the subject, I ask, why? After enjoying an intellectual roll in the mud, I arrived at some answers and wrote a whole chapter on the subject in my book The Hero Doctrine.
The story of Naaman got me thinking about this again. Naaman had to bathe seven times in the River Jordan. Seven times. He got to the sixth time, and clearly there was no evidence that it was washing away any of his leprous skin. You’d think there’d be clear progress by then. Then he bathed one more time and that’s when it happened. It’s important that it wasn’t the water that was cleansing him of the disease. If it was the muddy river, he’d have seen signs with every wash. But it wasn’t. His actual actions had almost nothing to do with the particular result. But what they did connote was faith. Naaman learned the principle of faith—obey, even when your mind can see no rationale for it—and you will be taken care of. Healed, cleansed, sometimes even rewarded. Faith. God taught Naaman to trust him. And that’s the first virtue taught.
So, why faith? Well, because in this world, time moves forward. Causes precede effects and we have no capacity to generate memories of the future. We literally cannot see what our actions NOW will bring about LATER. We can guess, we can plan, we can hope, but we can’t know for certain. And so everything that we do, every action we take, every choice we make, is based on some kind of faith. Faith in various things, but always faith—faith that what we do matters in the future. That the world will make sense the way we think it does. Even that the sun will rise the next day.
The twin virtue of faith is humility. What God wants of us is to acknowledge that He sees all in ways we cannot, and so we must listen to Him, remember Him, and incorporate as much two-way communication with Him as is possible into our lives. This is called worship. It is not because God has a fragile ego that relies on our love and support. It is because the future is unknown to us, but not to Him, and we need to learn to trust Him, because otherwise, we cannot learn. It’s a pattern that will extend beyond our cosmological infancy. It’s the pattern of learning itself. There is no other way to gain knowledge.
We put the same faith and trust as students in our teachers at school. Science is not so very far away from religion! Scientists have faith and trust in their instruments, in their own cognitive powers, in the findings and teachings of the great minds of the past. They once had to believe their own teachers and mentors before they knew. There is no knowledge gained that isn’t predicated on a willingness to believe what someone or something else tells you first. The journey to knowledge requires serious humility and a willingness to believe no matter which avenue you take.
Naaman was asked to bathe seven times in the Jordan River. For that, his flesh-eating disease was healed from his body and a seed of testimony was planted in his soul. It was an odd sort of instruction and process, and at the time probably confusing and even troublesome. Naaman probably felt a little embarrassed, performing that task so many times and without result.
God asks that kind of faith and so much more from US over the course of our lifetimes. We were sent to these times in the last days like we, too, were asked to bathe in muddy waters. The burdens of discipleship can feel so heavy, loads put on our shoulders by the world in a kind of twisted endurance test. Faith and trust in the Lord has perhaps never been so important—and the ability to feel the Spirit and receive revelation from God is the same. It can feel like we’re flying through an asteroid field, missiles striking our craft from every direction as we attempt to maneuver to where we hope we will find a safe haven on the distant side. Faith is the hull that keeps that ship together, the shield we’re counseled to hold up.
But—faith is an act only possible through agency. God will not force knowledge down on us. Whether in the face of the trials of the material world or bombarded by the fiery darts of modern apostasy, we either choose to lift up our shields of faith or lower them. When we show faith, we demonstrate that we are willing to learn. But sadly, it is fully possible to suffer the worst this world can throw at us and not learn a darn thing.
Faith is something we can have and feel and develop at any point in our lives, if we choose to. All else can be stripped away, but faith cannot unless we let it. Faith is literally our connection to God, a blueprint for the sealing power found in the temple that will one day link us all as God’s family. And even though faith is, in a way, its own reward—given how close it takes us to God’s embrace—it never goes unrewarded. God does not break His promises and He does not withhold his blessings forever. And then, after learning what God asks us to learn, not only will we be close to God’s bosom—we will see the world and even ourselves through His eyes, timeless and full and clean. Our questions melt, our borders grow, our deepest wounds heal.
I’m a little behind in Come Follow Me. Omicron canceled church meetings for a few weeks in a row at the start of this year and so I never got an actual manual. It slipped my mind that we as a church would still be going through the weekly scripture readings and discussion prompts, even without a formal heralding in of the new year and new book of scripture. Then there was the hesitancy about the Old Testament, which passages and stories were going to be focused on, what kind of lessons would we be abstracting from some of the odder tales, etc. The Old Testament isn’t always as easy a fit into our theology as other scriptures, at least certain parts. I’ve always categorized it as a book of scripture for the Jews, which may or may not contain stories that were at least in part fictionalized as they were passed down through generations and pairs of ears and pens of scribes. There’s some weird stuff in there, taking place thousands of years ago, some with not very many details and some with a few too many. Who knows what is literally true and what is not? I don’t. I know my Lord through the Gospels, through the Book of Mormon, through the Doctrine and Covenants—and through His companionship in my journey through the trials He’s set out for me.
Then I read Moses 1 and Abraham 3. And I saw my Father in Heaven in clearer detail than I had in any of the above books. Than I ever had before, really.
In both of these passages, God is a human being. He’s not demanding worship. He’s not striking fear in anybody’s hearts. He declares Himself as God, and then immediately sits down with me in the grass, wraps his arm around my shoulder, and points up at the stars of the night sky. He is my father, showing me who he is, what he’s done, and who I can one day be. It is expressly intimate. It feels almost casual, like we’d just finished playing catch and eating burgers I just helped him make on the outdoor grill. I am not afraid. I am in awe. I want to be there, I want to learn from him. It is the most profound experience of my life, and yet I am not aware of that at the time. He is excited to teach me, that I am in such a place in my life where I can listen and understand and finally see—see the way he does, with brightened eyes. I finally understand who I am, and why I am. The things and ways of God finally make sense.
Before I’d even finished reading these chapters, I knew exactly where I’d seen and felt similar emotions.
Mufasa teaches his son similar things, in a similar moment. The stars and the kings of the past and the destiny and identity of his son. But Simba forgets and ends up in a life of mortal pleasures. (If you can call feasting on insects pleasure. )
Years later, he is reminded of his identity:
Does God want us to mindlessly worship? Or does he want us to just…listen? Maybe that’s what worshiping is. Quieting ourselves and listening and then, finally, remembering him. Because in remembering Him, we remember ourselves. That link that binds us is everything. It is the reason for the plan of salvation, the reason for the Atonement. To see God’s mighty works in the stars—and to know that we are also His glorious works, and we are not finished, and that we are His work and His glory.
And that’s what the Old Testament is about. It’s not done. It’s not complete. God will make old things new, and that includes us. The story of God and His relationship with His children is not relegated to one book of scripture. It’s the journey of the Creation, and that Creation does not end in Genesis. It is ongoing. We are the ones being created. We are the ones being formed. God took eons to make the earth and the stars and the universe, and that work isn’t done, because we are not done. And maybe someday our journeys from the tiniest intelligences to grand gods will be written down in scripture and we can read about ourselves—the true creation story of our God and Father.
The bread is thick and must be chewed. Our teeth come down in violence to tear it apart, our saliva breaks the pieces down into moistened morsels; as we swallow, bits can remain lodged in our throat. We need the bread for nourishment, but alone it leaves us needing more and can be uncomfortable to bear.
We sit and wait patiently.
The water comes. It is smooth and cold and easy on the throat. It soothes and slides and rejuvenates. Any lodged pieces of bread that remain are washed away. We feel clean and replenished and ready to take on more food. Together with the bread, we are nourished, refreshed, strengthened.
After the tribulation come the blessings.
After mourning, after frustration, after disappointment, come the manifestations of peace, comfort, and closeness to God.
After repentance and humility and godly sorrow come the gifts of forgiveness and cleanliness and the forgetting of all previous pain.
After the lecture, the sermon, the fiery darts that can come from either God or Lucifer, come the increased love, the palpable life improvements, the betterment of our soul.
We remember our sins and our suffering no more. Now we know firsthand the purpose of the hard times and the fruits of the nourishment.
And then…you get hungry and eat more bread. Life gets hard again. Stuff gets lodged in your throat. It’s uncomfortable to swallow. You’re thirsty. You’re tired. You’re fed up. Everything’s terrible. You know the water’s there somewhere, but you don’t see a deacon coming down the aisle! You tap your foot. You’re patient. You’re enduring. You’re even enduring well, reading scriptures or pondering the words of God while you wait! Won’t the water ever come? The ceremony, the parable, isn’t complete without the peaceful ending. The works of God aren’t supposed to end like this!
And then the water comes. Hey, it worked. The cycle continued. After the bread came the water. After the faith came the fruits. After the tribulation came the blessings.
And we’re that much closer to God and to understanding Him.
The act of the Atonement took place in what we call the Meridian of Time. A small moment at the hinge point of known human history, when Christ lived, right before the end of His life. Up until that point, all the Jews that had been promised a Savior, both Israelites and those on the American continent, could only look forward to this event, this moment of salvation. Until then, it was only a hope.
Then it happened, and the hope was fulfilled.
This Atonement, by which we are promised not only the consequence of forgiveness if we repent but the grace and power through which we can enact that change that leads to repentance, is said to be infinite. Infinite in time—it goes backwards and forwards from that Meridian of Time; the first generations of humans who ever sinned could receive its help as well as the final generation, including after this life as we strive toward exaltation—and infinite in depth; even the most depraved sinner could access the Savior’s grace and reach for His outstretched hand to change into a creature of light.
We also know a curious effect of the Resurrection, Christ’s other promise to all of us granted by His Atonement: there will be multiple generations of the Resurrection. The First, the Second, the Third, etc., depending on our righteousness and time that we come to this earth and the time that we die. But eventually, we are assured, it will come to all.
The Atonement is also accessible to all, forever in either direction. We’re told that this life is the time to prepare to meet God, but so many die that will never or never did even hear the name of Christ. We have temple ordinances for the dead to offer them all the opportunity to accept (or deny) that Atoning power and celestial glory in the next life.
Here’s my question: will there ever be a last chance? Will there ever be a limit to that grace? Will there be anyone who is stuck eternally in one of the lower kingdoms with no way to ever get out? I’ll take the question even further. Is it now absolutely impossible for any of the Sons of Perdition to ever change?
I don’t know for sure, but I assuredly don’t believe in a limit or ending to Christ’s grace. I don’t believe it will ever run out, not in time, not in depth.
I believe Christ will have His hand stretched out eternally, ready for even the most hellish prisoner to take when they are ready. We talk about how much Christ suffered as He performed this Atonement, how He took upon Him the pains and sicknesses and the feelings of damnation that we all feel in these mortal bodies, as we are cut off from happiness and health and even the presence of God. He felt the worst pains anyone could ever feel, and He felt them, all that anyone would ever feel, at the same time. The punishments and consequences of this world and the next, so that we would not have to if we would repent. Can you imagine a Being with that much love eventually telling us that we had our last chance? No, I don’t think so. I think even as we are sorted into different kingdoms according to our own freely made choices, there still could be opportunities to move up, to move higher. I don’t believe that anyone will have missed their “last chance.” Ever.
This earth took billions of years to make, and the universe itself, even longer. This earth here will eventually be destroyed and perfected. Other planets have gone through this process, and more have perhaps not even started. Clearly God’s creative processes are eternal. So why should we, even more complex beings and intelligences and offsprings of Him, be given any less time to complete the measure of our creation?
The Grand Canyon took millions of years to form. Little by little, speck by speck, running water bore into the hard, dry earth, and ground it away. Rocks eroded and after all that time, the grand vision now sits before us. It just took those little chips of opposition over a heckuva long time, like a stream smoothing a sharp rock down into a perfect skipping stone. I believe those in the lower kingdoms might experience the same smoothing process over time, while those in the celestial kingdom will take part in a more active improvement process through direct education and experimentation. I believe even Hell itself, the place God prepared for the most distant of His children, could have features whether physical or spiritual that, over a great deal of time, can begin a purging process for the soul, much the way suffering can in this mortal life. Otherwise, what is the purpose of pain in hell? Just as punishment? I do not believe in a Father who inflicts pain for its own sake. All suffering has a purpose, if we let it.
I see the story of the prodigal son and I can’t help but think of another son of God, the one that’s been wandering a longer time than any of us. Might God be out there, watching the horizon, hoping that one of these evenings his son, the onetime Morning Star, will appear against the sunset? Might He be ready to fall on the neck of His most wayward child and hold Him as tears run down into his hair?
Does God not love Lucifer anymore?
I think He does. And I believe that someday even the darkest Sons of Perdition will have left hell, and the devil will be all alone down there. And perhaps for a time he’ll just be angry, ranting and raving and gnashing his teeth, but he’ll realize that he has no sources of pleasure or laughter left, no one to torment to escape his own suffering, no one to blame but himself. I see him sitting on a swing, the last kid left on the playground, and God or Jesus or both finally descending into hell itself to sit on the swing next to him, and wait for him to talk. And God will tell him that He still loves him, and plead with him to accept the Atonement and come back, come with Him to the light, and bring that light as he once did in the pre-mortal realm. Then the wayward child will bury himself in His Father’s arms and cry and cry.
I don’t think the Atonement can be complete until then. I don’t think God’s mission will be finished until His entire family, including every one of HIs children, are sealed together. Why should God care how long it takes? Where does He have to go? What more important business would He have? No, we as His children are His work and His glory. There’s nothing better, no higher priority, than creating gods like unto Himself, and He loves each of these beings he’s created eternally. That must include Lucifer.
I don’t know this for sure, I’ll admit. But I think one of the main reasons we’re given the commandment to have children is to better our understanding of our Heavenly Parents—and from my meager experiences as a father of a 4-year-old and a 7-month-old, I can’t imagine cutting off any of my children forever.
Okay, guys, you know the parable of the talents. It’s one I’ve taken very personally in the past. But my life got very lopsided in the last couple of years as I’ve been handling a toddler as a stay-at-home dad. As you probably know, toddlers are very life-disruptive things. 95% of being a dad to a toddler is sitting down for a break and then immediately standing up again to rush to the next crisis.
This parable has been poking me again recently. Let’s just go through it really quick:
The master gave his three servants some money to invest with.
The first servant invested his five talents into the local economy and doubled them. This enriched not only himself but the community as well.
The second servant invested his two talents into the local economy and doubled them. This enriched not only himself but the community as well.
The third servant buried the single talent his master gave him, keeping it but making no progress and keeping its possibilities inert. He was not enriched. The community was not enriched. No one benefited, and so the master took that single talent away from him. The most that could be said is that he did not use the talent for selfish or destructive reasons. Like, say, the prodigal son. (Who was way better treated in the end than was this uncertain servant, to be fair.)
This applies to money (which is what talents are in the parable), and it applies to our natural God-given abilities (which we frequently call, yes, “talents”).
Think of exercise. (This should be obvious.) If God has blessed us with enough strength to bench press 100 pounds, then we can do that. Maybe some of us would take pride in that weight. But if we keep doing it over and over, exercising that ability, it naturally grows within us, and we can bench press even more. Running, biking, skiing; playing football, basketball, baseball, soccer. The more we practice and exercise, the better we get. The more our talents literally increase and the better off the world is around us.
God has created a world where truth echoes through every sphere. And so, the parable of the talents applies not only in the realms of money and physical abilities, but those attributes of ourselves that are impossible to quantify but come to define the better parts of our life experience: spiritual gifts.
It’s what these verses in D&C 130 are all about:
20 There is a law, irrevocably decreed in heaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all blessings are predicated—
21 And when we obtain any blessing from God, it is by obedience to that law upon which it is predicated.
What Brother Joseph (or Christ, I’m not sure) is describing is exactly the phenomenon at work in physical exercise and financial investing. When we obey certain laws, God and the universe naturally dispense certain blessings. It’s an intrinsic part of this world, this very reality.
It is my strong belief that you can be a wicked person in so many ways and still harvest these spiritual blessings if you cultivate corresponding certain spiritual abilities. In my experience, you don’t have to obey all of God’s laws to receive such fruits. I almost see it as being out of God’s hands (see D&C 82:10). It’s simply the nature of the world He created. Natural law and spiritual law both produce consequences, even if the latter is difficult to touch or see or feel. A writer who is wicked but nonetheless works hard to invest the spiritual talents God has given him will reap the reward for that effort. Not only will he get better at writing, but he may get better at the actual creative work that precedes that skill. He may even have access to the raw creative material that I believe exists on some level, the stuff that sort of pops into your brain and blesses you with the ideas that you’ll later write down.
As you probably noticed from my example (oh gee, a writer, huh? that’s original), the topic has been pretty heavy on my mind lately and especially today. I was already thinking about it when today I happened to read 1 Corinthians 12 as I was catching up with the Come Follow Me program. (That’s the famous chapter in which Paul describes a variety of spiritual gifts.) That made it pretty clear to me God wanted me to think about my own spiritual gifts, and especially the negative natural consequences of not exercising them.
I started writing blog posts when I started trying to market my book, The Hero Doctrine, in the months before it was officially published. It was hard at first, but I set a low benchmark, just 300 or so words per post, but two or three times a week. It wasn’t a comfortable process. But I got better at it. And the ideas for the blog posts eventually branched out from the topics covered by the book, and away from pure marketing. I got more and more ideas, developed a deeper and deeper understanding of the gospel as I thought about all the various fascinating facets. I was using my gift, exercising it, growing it, investing it—and thus enriching the community of friends who read my blog.
I don’t remember when the decline started. But after a while, I started getting fewer responses. Fewer likes, fewer clicks, fewer views. And it depressed the heck out of me. I would have what I considered a brilliant idea, well-articulated, and no one would want to come read it (except Amy and Matthew Carlin—thanks so much, you guys!). I’m sure part of that is my fault—I tend to get into a certain kind of self-righteous voice when I’m writing this kind of stuff. It’s not very personable. (You might can see that I’m trying to be a little more down-to-earth in this particular post.) And I typically find fascinating things that can be dry to others. No one likes dry food, spiritual or otherwise.
But regardless, it was discouraging. Very discouraging. I couldn’t handle the disappointment anymore and I stopped writing regular posts. That led to a huge decrease in the time I’d spend thinking about the deeper parts of the gospel, the parts that once excited me, thrilled me, made me want to discuss them with friends. The gospel itself lost some of its wonder, its profundity, in my head.
I stopped exercising my spiritual gift. And so I lost my spiritual gift.
My fiction writing, on the other hand, is going fine. Better than fine. Great. I’ve never felt such control over a story before; I’ve never known my characters as well as I do in The City of Broken Wings right now. When I’m stuck on a certain part, or need to figure out how my idea will fit into the next part of the story, sometimes all it takes is for me to kneel down. Before the prayer is over, I have the solution. And then some! Sometimes I will get too many ideas and have to put a damper on it. I’m not only getting better at writing, but at creation and storytelling. I am exercising that spiritual gift, and so I am given even greater talent in return.
One law broken does not mean that the fruits of every other law that is kept will be withheld. I may lack the spiritual gift that fueled my blog posts and The Hero Doctrine itself, but God (or at least the spiritual laws He put in place) is rewarding my efforts in other areas. It’s a system that makes total sense to me. God knows we’re imperfect and that we’re developing, and it takes time, so He’s not going to keep the fruits of our efforts in one category to Himself until we’re perfect in every other category. Every blessing is predicated on its own fixed and unique and unchangeable law.
You may have noticed that I’m writing a blog post about not writing more blog posts. Well, yes, it’s true: I’m trying to exercise that part of myself again. I want to write more. I want to cast aside the discouragement and write these things anyway. I want to cultivate my talent because that particular spiritual gift feeds my soul better than any other—and I don’t know if some random Google search will bring up my blog post and inspire some stranger that I never actually meet to inquire more about the Church.
This verse from D&C 6 is my own personal inspiration:
11 And if thou wilt inquire, thou shalt know mysteries which are great and marvelous; therefore thou shalt exercise thy gift, that thou mayest find out mysteries, that thou mayest bring many to the knowledge of the truth, yea, convince them of the error of their ways.
If you find yourself farther away from gifts you once considered an essential part of you—or if you feel the Spirit whispering to you to develop a certain talent you might have once thought you had—think about revisiting it. God gave us every talent we have for a set of twin reasons—to help bring others to Christ and to bring us closer to God Himself, who has mastered every talent He’s ever given out.
And that’s our whole goal in life—the previous one, this one, and the one to come: to grow to be like God. That’s why we have talents.
You people know I love seeing spiritual parallels between fiction and the gospel. Movies, books, games—the world sometimes inadvertently illustrates God and the gospel in its images and stories and characters. I’ve devoted a lot of this blog to the pop culture parables I see that move me in powerful ways. Heck, I wrote a book on that premise.
You don’t need to watch the entirety of A STAR IS BORN to see what I saw here. You just need to watch the video for the Oscar-winning song “Shallow.”
Bradley Cooper plays an aging (and alcoholic) country music star who happens across Lady Gaga’s character’s unknown and undiscovered singing talent and gives her an opportunity to sing on his stage. Watch the video and then watch it again.
As Lady Gaga’s voice and talent break free from their cage, as she is fulfilling her godlike potential and hearing the massive crowd roar in approval, look at Bradley Cooper’s character. Look at the joy HE feels as he watches her! Look at him swing around that guitar in happiness as he sees someone else experience what he once did. He once had that dream of being successful and he achieved it. Now he gets to help someone else achieve the very same thing, and he radiates gladness for her. He is bringing her up to his level, and there is no greater feeling.
No greater feeling. No greater motivation. No greater love.
This is God. And it is us. The great plan of salvation.
(On a personal note—maybe part of what attracts me to this story is my own personal hopes and dreams. The desire to be “found” has haunted me for years. Like Lady Gaga’s character, I’ve been working and hoping for that chance for my entire adult life, never giving up all the way but still never finding that success. In my mind’s eye, I believe God wants those hopes and dreams to come true—He wants me to get what I’ve been working faithfully towards. He’s just waiting for the right time, like Lady Gaga on that stage. And it’s going to make HIM as happy, or even more happy, than it will make me, to see those desires fulfilled, to see my progression and development. He will feel joy because I will feel joy. That’s the hope!)
A Mirror, a Sword and Shield 