Remember This

I guess that I wrote about this last time, too, but it is something that keeps coming up in my life: hard times do not mean that God does not love you, and they don't even mean that you have done something wrong. They are just hard times.

Remember this?

15 After I had retired to the place where I had previously designed to go, having looked around me, and finding myself alone, I kneeled down and began to offer up the desires of my heart to God. I had scarcely done so, when immediately I was ^aseized upon by some power which entirely overcame me, and had such an astonishing influence over me as to bind my tongue so that I could not speak. Thick ^bdarkness gathered around me, and it seemed to me for a time as if I were doomed to sudden destruction.

16 But, exerting all my powers to ^acall upon God to deliver me out of the power of this enemy which had seized upon me, and at the very moment when I was ready to sink into ^bdespair and abandon myself to destruction—not to an imaginary ruin, but to the power of some actual being from the unseen world, who had such marvelous power as I had never before felt in any being—just at this moment of great alarm, I saw a pillar of ^clight exactly over my head, above the brightness of the ^dsun, which descended gradually until it fell upon me. (Joseph Smith-History)

Or what about this?

19 And now, when Moses had said these words, ^aSatan cried with a loud voice, and ranted upon the earth, and commanded, saying: I am the ^bOnly Begotten, worship me.

20 And it came to pass that Moses began to ^afear exceedingly; and as he began to fear, he saw the bitterness of ^bhell. Nevertheless, ^ccalling upon God, he received ^dstrength, and he commanded, saying: Depart from me, Satan, for this one God only will I worship, which is the God of ^eglory.

21 And now Satan began to tremble, and the earth shook; and Moses received strength, and called upon God, saying: In the name of the Only Begotten, ^adepart hence, ^bSatan.

22 And it came to pass that Satan cried with a loud voice, with weeping, and wailing, and ^agnashing of teeth; and he departed hence, even from the presence of Moses, that he beheld him not.

23 And now of this thing Moses bore record; but because of ^awickedness it is ^bnot had among the children of men.

24 And it came to pass that when Satan had departed from the presence of Moses, that Moses lifted up his eyes unto heaven, being filled with the ^aHoly Ghost, which beareth record of the Father and the Son;

25 And calling upon the name of God, he beheld his ^aglory again, for it was upon him; and he heard a ^bvoice, saying: Blessed art thou, Moses, for I, the Almighty, have ^cchosen thee, and thou shalt be made stronger than many ^dwaters; for they shall obey thy ^ecommand as if thou wert ^fGod. (Moses)

Why do we go through sorrow and discouragement? I don't know, and I'm sticking to my answer. But just two more:

Learning to endure times of disappointment, suffering, and sorrow is part of our on-the-job training. These experiences, while often difficult to bear at the time, are precisely the kinds of experiences that stretch our understanding, build our character, and increase our compassion for others.

Because Jesus Christ suffered greatly, He understands our suffering. He understands our grief. We experience hard things so that we too may have increased compassion and understanding for others. (Joseph B. Wirthlin, "Come What May and Love it," Saturday Afternoon Session of October 2008 General Conference)

And from the Ensign this month; the article that gives this quote from Elder Cannon is titled "The Blessing of the Blackberry Bush," and it is by Donnell Allan:

Elder George Q. Cannon (1827–1901): “The Saints should always remember that God sees not as man sees; that he does not willingly afflict his children, and that if he requires them to endure present privation and trial, it is that they may escape greater tribulations which would otherwise inevitably overtake them. If He deprives them of any present blessing, it is that he may bestow upon them greater and more glorious ones by-and-by.”1 1. “Beneficial Results of Continued Obedience to the Teachings of God’s Servants,” Millennial Star, Oct. 3, 1863, 634.

You might also check out Elder Holland's "A High Priest of Good Things to Come," which is a General Conference address he gave in October of 1999.

To all these I add that I have felt for some time that "[God] does not willingly afflict his children;" I believe that He loves us as much as He loves His Son, Jesus Christ. I believe that every bit as much as he would send an angel to help Jesus in Gethsemane, or as much as he would sorrow because (for whatever reason) the Savior could not feel his father's presence as he suffered on the cross-- as much as these were true for the Savior, they are true for us. I believe that God weeps for our sorrows, that he sorrows for our difficulties, he laughs at our silliness, and he rejoices, more than we would ever realize, at our successes. He is not without body, parts, or passions. That is, as Joseph Smith would say, an old sectarian notion, and it is false. God is intimately involved in our lives. He is not an abstract logical proposition; he is a person, and the part of him which is beyond our mortal comprehension is that part which cares with every fiber of His being about how well we are doing.

I spoke stout against thee?

Malachi 3:

13 Your words have been stout against me, saith the Lord. Yet ye say: What have we spoken against thee?

14 Ye have ^asaid: It is ^bvain to serve God, and what doth it profit that we have kept his ^cordinances and that we have walked mournfully before the Lord of Hosts?

15 And now we call the proud happy; yea, they that work wickedness are set up; yea, they that tempt God are even delivered.

I was writing an email to my best friend the other day; she is having a bit of a hard time, so I was trying to cheer her up. This is what I wrote (sorry about quoting myself, but then I'll comment):

Did God raise up Moses, save him as a baby, send him to the desert to learn from his father in law, send him back to Egypt, do gabillions of miracles, get the Children of Israel out, lead them to the Red Sea, put a pillar of fire between them and the armies of Pharoah, and then say, "Oh, well. There's a body of water between my people and safety. I guess I'll just have to give up now." I submit to you that God may be dumb, but he isn't that stupid. He has not brought you this far in your life with the intention of letting you fail. Suffer a little, worry a little, yes, probably; but complete and utter failure is not in the plan.

I was thinking about that "God may be dumb, but he isn't that stupid," and wondering if it wasn't a little strong, but then I thought: isn't that what we do when we doubt Him like that? When we forget the miracles He has done, and assume that there is no way He can help us again? That he doesn't WANT to help us? That we are somehow unworthy of help?

I love that scripture in Malachi, partly because of how it ends:

16 Then they that feared the Lord ^aspake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard; and a book of ^bremembrance was written before him for them that feared the Lord, and that thought upon his name.

17 And they shall be ^amine, saith the Lord of Hosts, in that day when I ^bmake up my jewels; and I will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him.

18 Then shall ye return and ^adiscern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.

I particularly love the part about how the Lord hearkened and heard. I also love how it says that he will spare them as a man spareth his own son that serveth him. Believing that this applies to me does not mean that I should feel a right to be cocky, arrogant, prideful, etc; it means that when the chips are down and it looks like the bad guys are going to win, I am actually speaking against God when I choose to despair.

(But Cornelia, what do you mean by the bad guys? Do you lead a secret life as a superhero that we didn't know about? No, in fact, I do not. However, doesn't it just seem sometimes like mean people end up with better things in life? Not that you should hate the people themselves, but REALLY there comes a time when love or no love, sometimes a person is just mean. However. I remind myself that I am nice not for external rewards, but because I like to be. I am a Holy-Ghost-Led-Utilitarian, and I believe that God is an Eternal-Perspective-Utilitarian, but that is another explanation for another day.)

P.S. I am older than I look, but I am still pretty young. Notwithstanding my relative youth, I strongly affirm that in my short life, I have still seen multiple occasions when persons who have done wickedly have gotten their just rewards. Again, this is no occassion for feeling holier-than-thou, but when someone has done something unkind to me and I feel the need for vengance, I can take a deep breath and think: God did a very good job of giving that last person their just reward. In fact, He did such a good job that I am now feeling sorry for that person and feel a need to pray that their life will go better. I wouldn't trade places with that person. Speaking of which, Dear God, please, if there is anything I forgot to repent of, please help me do so now, please forgive me, because I would rather repent now than suffer later.

And that is what I often think.

The Gift of Tongues

Note: For anyone who is not familiar with my situation as I write this (like me, reading this five years from now), I happen to be in Germany at the moment.

On Sunday, one of the counsellors in the bishopric handed me a card asking me to say the closing prayer on February first. He told me that I could say it in English. I adamantly refused.

And that's when a light went off.

I didn't want to say it in English because doing so seemed like a wasted opportunity to speak in German. And what I realized is that wanting to do something is a part of the gift for actually doing that thing.

I then realized a whole bunch of stuff that I had known for a long time but had never quite put together this way. A talk, of sorts, began to form in my mind, so that is what I've written below.

We know, or we should know, that spiritual gifts are given for the building up of the kingdom of God. Heavenly Father wants us to all help one another, like we were all parts of the same body, so he gave each a gift which the others need. (On a side note, I believe that we all have opportunities to be part of the liver, meaning that we have chances to take poison out of the whole system by processing it properly and not passing it on. That is a gift of the Savior's, which I believe He expects each of us to develop.)

The gift of tongues could be compared to an enzyme; it allows ínteractions which would happen anyway to happen faster, and it allows some interactions to happen which would not have otherwise.

There is, of course, the highest level of the gift of tongues such as was exhibited in ancient times on he day of Pentecost: a day when all who were gathered had the Holy Ghost to such a strong degree that they could every one of them understand the speaker without translation, and without having to study the language he was speaking in. This sort of event, as I'm sure you have noticed, is cool, fancy, and extremely rare.

The much more common gift is a gift for learning quickly. That's the one I've got, and that's the one I got an insight in to on Sunday. Here are the parts of it that I know about so far:

1. Lack of physical or mental impairments, such as a hearing problem, language delay, processing problems, and so on. These are not hard to imagine. If one works on such a weakness, however, it can become a great strength, particularly when it comes to teaching others.
2. Desire to learn, which for me pans out as enjoyment in learning. I believe that this can come in different ways. I had a truly great German teacher in Jr. High and High School, who sparked my love of language learning; later, at BYU, I ended up with an Arabic teacher who fed the fire, causing me to spend about twice as much time studying for Arabic class than I had for anything else in my life so far. Whenever someone asks me if learning Arabic was hard (though I do not mean to imply that I am done learning it), I always say "It was lots of hard work, but it was fun work."
3. Meta-knowledge in the realm of language learning. Meta-knowledge means knowledge about knowledge. I took my first language-teaching class when I was still taking Arabic, and while it made me a pretty bratty student (I was critical of almost everything my teacher was doing-- different teacher, by the way), it really did help me learn the language faster to think about how to apply research on language learning. Now that I have, myself, taught English as a Second Language for a year, I find that my ability to analyze my own weaknesses in speaking and writing German is strengthened.
4. Willingness and ability to put all of this to work. I knew how to study languages before I got here, but at the moment I am learning much faster than I have in the past eight years at least, because I am truly in an immersion environment.

So. Sorry this is such a long post. I was reading the Sunday School lesson yesterday (Monday), and thinking about spritual gifts, and this is what I came up with:

1. Joseph Smith was born into a family which was open-minded on religious matters. His father wouldn't join a church because he didn't feel right about it. Religion was an open topic in their home.
2. Nonetheless, his family was very interested in religion. (A certain portion of what gifts we have does come from environment, though of course as we get older we can exercise influence over that environment.) They lived in a generally religious community, and they themselves read the Bible as a family every day. And, of course, Joseph was very concerned about the things he heard; he wanted to be saved, but he wasn't sure how that would happen.
3. Joseph's spark came from a bit of meta-knowledge from the book of James about spiritual knowledge.
4. He was both willing and able to put the knowledge he gained to use.

Ta-da! That's it. I haven't had much time to think about other gifts (maybe scripture study today...) but I would love to have comments on this one.

SAC

Marriage and Zion

Most of you have already heard this, but I felt the need to record it in a more permanent way. As it were.

As I was driving down to Arizona to visit my uncle and aunt-- goodness, nearly two weeks ago-- I had a unique opportunity to just ponder on stuff. During the first part of the drive, I had a friend with me, helping me do the driving. She wanted, not unpredictably, to talk about boys. I've gotten fairly close-lipped about who I like (partly because so far none of those persons have ever worked out as a spouse), but I was happy to talk about the very nice boy my best friend took up with last summer, and whom she may well be marrying sometime next spring.

I also thought about my other best friend, who, nine years ago, married someone who is similarly (to the boyfriend I just mentioned) extraordinarily kind and good to her. I thought about what my mother and sisters have said about how important it is to make friends with your spouse before you marry, and how even more important it is to build that friendship after you marry. I mulled over a conversation I had had with my sister just before I left. I noticed to her that both of my best friends have chosen/are choosing people who are considerably different from what they had originally envisioned for themselves; people who seem, well, more boring than they had thought they wanted. (NOTE: both of these men are anything but boring, conversation-wise. They are intelligent, and they can speak Spanish and program computers and play trumpet-- they aren't really boring. But they are also not Mr. Rochester (the inscrutable, dashing hero from Jane Eyre) or, even better, Jack Wickham.) I said to her that maybe, since I think of both of my best friends as being more exciting than me, I will end up marrying someone more exciting than I had expected. She looked at me and said, "Most women marry someone less exciting than they had expected, and it's a good thing. The things the media portrays as exciting, which we are trained to see as attractive, are really things which make a person a bad spouse. Traits which are seen as boring-- things like steadiness, kindness, and the ability to hold down a good job-- are the things which make a person a good spouse."

So I was pondering on all that. And all of a sudden, as I pondered, I could perceive how sex fit in to marriage-- as a component, an essential one, but just a component of something that is both larger and more important than itself. That moment was like when your neck is out and somehow it pops in again. It was that satisfying. I am leaving things out here, but it was a kind of personal conversation, being with myself and all, so that is all I'm going to say about that part of it.

Anyway, the next day I was driving completely by myself, and thinking about this again, and this time I set in on the next problem, which is: if marriage isn't about sex, then what is it about?

It can't be about having and raising children, because some couples never do have and raise children, and their marriages are still valid, and still somehow do whatever it is that marriages are supposed to do, though in a different way than most do. Beyond that, it should be fairly obvious to most of us that some people are blessed with children, but treat them so badly that the essential purpose of parenting, and therefore (somehow) at least some of the essential purpose of marriage, has failed in these cases.

Could it be that married people are to help each other become better people? I think that this isn't far off the mark, but "better people" is so vague that it seems unhelpful.

We get married so that we can seek for Heavenly Father together.

That is what I believe is true.

I have to say that during the past year, maybe longer, I had started feeling weary of all the talk about getting married. I do want to get married, and I believe that it has many glorious benefits, but I had started tuning out talks about how important it was, because it just brought up painful feelings: it certainly isn't for lack of thinking it's important that I have not married yet.

However, this most recent insight helped me turn a corner. I no longer see marriage as a tantalizing prize which I do not personally hold the key to, but which everyone keeps telling me to try to get. Instead, I see it as a glorious, eternal principle. I see that it is like and runs parallel to my own personal quest for exaltation.

It is also like the principle of Zion, a society of people who are pure of heart, and there are not poor among them, and you are never given so much information that you can't apply what you know, but you are always aware that there is more information out there about how to make this society better. I do not a remember a time when the idea of Zion did not stir up an odd, excited, tingly feeling in my soul, a longing for a home that I do not remember. Marriage is not quite up to that yet, for me, but I am now curious to learn about it; to learn what the prophets, ancient and modern, have counseled and taught about this glorious principle.

One other, extremely nice side effect of all this realization is that I now have a much clearer idea of what I am looking for in a spouse. I need a person who wants to seek Heavenly Father's presence, along with me. This does not mean that we have to have the exact, exact same goals, or that we are just alike in personality or other ways. It just means that we can get along well enough, and like each other well enough, that we can work towards this, most important goal in a marriage, together.

I'm tired enough that my eyes are swimming. Here's hoping that this one's readable.

Three Witnesses

"...though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true..." (John 8:14)

That's the Savior speaking, and I have long been fascinated by this verse. I do believe Him, but I often wondered: how is that possible? Because, the law of witnesses is still in force; if the Savior would submit to baptism just to fulfill the law, surely he would be willing to obey the law of witnesses.

And lo and behold, look what I read this morning:

32 And this is my ^adoctrine, and it is the doctrine which the Father hath given unto me; and I bear ^brecord of the Father, and the Father beareth record of me, and the ^cHoly Ghost beareth record of the Father and me; and I bear record that the Father commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent and believe in me. (3 Nephi 11:32)

I think that the Holy Ghost should have already been testifying to the hearts of the people Jesus was talking to; the Holy Ghost would have testified to them of the Father (and of the Father's testimony) and of the Son. Jesus was just repeating what they should have already been able to feel. And, indeed, as I looked up the original verse to put in this posting, look what I found (both of the following excerpts are from John 8):

12 ¶ Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the ^alight of the world: he that followeth me shall not ^bwalk in ^cdarkness, but shall have the light of life.

13 The Pharisees therefore said unto him, Thou bearest record of thyself; thy record is not true.

14 Jesus answered and said unto them, Though I bear record of myself, yet my record is true: for I know ^awhence I came, and whither I go; but ye cannot tell ^bwhence I come, and whither I go.

"[W]hence [He] and whither [he would] go"; it seems pretty clear that He is talking about heaven, where he was with Heavenly Father. And indeed, in verse 18, that is exactly who He says is His second witness.

18 I am one that bear witness of myself, and the ^aFather that sent me beareth ^bwitness of me.

19 Then said they unto him, Where is thy Father? Jesus answered, Ye neither know
me, nor my Father: if ye had ^aknown me, ye should have known my Father also.

We ourselves (and here I refer to other believing Christians, along with myself) are not like the Pharisees, but are in the position of the people Jesus tells the Nephites about in the beginning of 3 Nephi chapter 12. Not the ones he talks about in verse 1:

...blessed are ye if ye shall believe in me and be baptized, after that ye have seen me and know that I am.

We are the ones referred to in verse 2:

2 And again, more blessed are they who shall ^abelieve in your words because that ye shall testify that ye have seen me, and that ye know that I am. Yea, blessed are they who shall ^bbelieve in your ^cwords, and ^dcome down into the depths of humility and be baptized, for they shall be visited ^ewith fire and with the Holy Ghost, and shall receive a remission of their sins.

It is very nice to be "more blessed," don't you think?

What I learned about weaknesses from the people of Ammon

Maybe most of these blogs will be about the Book of Mormon, since that is what I know best.

My older sister and I were talking this morning about the Great Brain stories. These are fictional, but based on real-life people who lived in my home state of Utah about a century ago. The title character is Tom Fitzgerald, a boy who is very intelligent (hence the name) and sometimes a bit mean. We know from reading another, companion book by the same author, that although he grew up in a mixed-religion home, Tom later decided to become an active Mormon and even served a mission. Please understand that I'm not trying to say that if he had chosen to become an active Catholic, this would have shown that he really was bad, through and through; it's actually the fact that he chose to become active at all in any religion enough to proselyte in it that surprises me.

My sister speculated that maybe he had repented of his meanness so thoroughly that he became a great missionary. I remembered an acquaintance who had had an awful relationship with his sister when he was younger, who is uncommonly kind to her now. N said that when she has a little weakness, it often stays and stays in her character, but when she has a big weakness, big enough to cause her considerable pain when it makes her mess up, she will repent of it so thoroughly that she is never tempted by that thing again.

Which brings us to the People of Ammon, who repented so thoroughly of their weaknesses that thousands of years later, their descendants are still blessed by the actions of the forefathers. They became more righteous than the Nephites. They were known among their Nephite brethren for being honest, zealous, obedient, and faithful; it also says that they were a beloved people. The passive form there-- they were a beloved people-- leaves it ambiguous as to was doing the beloving; but I believe that it was the Nephites themselves, as much as it was Heavenly Father. The Nephites recognized their righteousness, and they loved them for it! The people of Antipus rejoiced when the little (figuratively) sons of Helaman were all spared in battle, rather than feeling jealous because so many of their own men had died.

The Nephites were surely a righteous people. But by the middle of the Book of Helaman-- the beginning of chapter six, to be exact-- we find that their righteousness as a group of people is almost continually eclipsed by the righteousness of the Lamanites, right up through chapter 9 of Moroni, in which the depravity of the Lamanites consists of forcing their prisoners to do that which the Nephites do as a "token of bravery".

What I glean from all this is that I would much rather be a righteous Lamanite than a complacent, thinks-she's-good-enough Nephite. Or, to be more exact, I would much rather repent of my small sins and weaknesses thoroughly before they become so big that they have to be repented of in a big way. I mean, there's no reason to wait-- except for procrastination and complacency.

I also want to gain that level of obedience and every-day energy for living the gospel. When I was younger, I didn't think that obedience was that big of a deal; not that I didn't think I needed to be obedient, but that I thought I was. As I have gotten older, and gotten more attuned to the nuances of what exactly is expected of me-- and also as I have become increasingly aware of the swiss-cheese-like texture of my firm foundation, which I would rather was more like it was made of granite-- as I have become more aware of these things, I have found obedience to be a much more difficult task than I used to think it was. I occasionally find myself thinking that I am too tired to be obedient. Or too stressed out. Of course, in hindsight, I always discover that it would have been much better in the end to have been obedient anyway, but I long for the day when I am obedient like an Ammonite. I long for the day when I am obedient because I have such a strong testimony of the gospel that I have no desire to do anything but be obedient. Perhaps that day will only come when I have sacrificed as much as the people of Ammon did, for the gospel. Quite frankly, that thought scares me. And again, as I think about it, perhaps that is why we have Fast Sunday-- so that we can make such sacrifices a little at a time, refining our characters where the flaws are small, rather than waiting for some catastrophic event to convince us that now really is the time to change.

Why I Love Gideon

The Bible Gideon is darn cool, but the one I'm talking about more is the one from the Book of Mormon.

This is why he was cool: he stood up to King Noah. He saw wickedness, and he did something about it (most likely because his conscience was getting to him over how Abinadi ended up) in a very concrete way: he went after it with a sword. Then he was (very properly) distracted by concern for his people. Then he was politic and sensitive to Limhi's feelings as he was directing him to NOT search among his own people for the daughters of the Lamanites, and then later on when he was suggesting a way to escape from the Lamanites.

When he was very old, he stood up to Nehor, and that is how he was killed: from Nehor's sword. A city was named after him. This city proved to be more righteous than its neighbors not only on Alma's missionary journey which is the one everyone remembers in Alma 7, but during the great war, it was the city in which Pahoran was able to gather his freemen.

Gideon is amazing. I wish that I were more gutsy-- more like him. I don't think that being gutsy means that you have to be offensive (though some people are determined to be offended, and there isn't much you can do about that). It means being intelligent and kind in how you state your views, so that others aren't taken by surprise when they figure out what you really do think.

Aquinas? I liked reading his stuff in my Ancient/Medieval Philosophy class. He seemed to understand that you can't just say "my was is right, and you just have to accept that." His arguments were well-reasoned and acknowledged that there was logic on the other guy's side. If I'm wrong-- I really haven't done any extensive reading of Thomas Aquinas-- then I apologize. I probably won't change the name of the blog, though. I like the way it rolls off the tongue.