"weeping may endure for a night, but joy cometh in the morning...Thou hast turned for me my mourning into dancing: thou hast put off my sackcloth, and girded me with gladness;"
-Psalms 30:5 (King James Version)
I'm not entirely sure that this will be a daily thing for the entire month (if you missed what's going on with that, check out this post), but it could be. As it turns out, I waste a lot of time on a lot of worthless stuff, so when you remove that, I have a lot of spare time; time I can use to do things I really want to-like write a journal, and study a ton of scriptures, which then leads me to want to share stuff. Since I'm still working on the whole "recluse" thing, that means I'll probably come here for that.
Thursday night, I went to the temple with some friends. It was good, as going to the temple ought always to be. I had a lot of questions come to mind during the endowment, which is a bit unusual for me. One thing that I have pondered a lot, and felt like I've never really gotten a satisfying answer on is the Fall (not autumn, silly, Adam). It's not that the idea of Adam falling and us ending up in this state to be tested bothers me-I understand that part. And I get that the Fall was necessary so that we could come to earth, and so that the Atonement could be provided. I get that it puts us in a position where we have agency. But somehow it just always seemed like we focus on it a lot more than we should for all of that. I mean, every investigator has to be taught about the fall, usually the second time they meet with missionaries. And it's a pretty big chunk of the text in that lesson. On my mission, I always figured that this was because we had to teach people the correct way of viewing it, and help them understand that there is no such thing as "original sin", that men are to be held accountable for themselves and themselves alone. And I think to a degree that was why we focused on it in the mission. But that doesn't explain why some people have referred to is as one of the "Three Pillars of the Church", or why it's brought up so much in the scriptures. I think there's more to it than that.
On Thursday night, as I pondered it, I came to a partial conclusion, but I still didn't fully understand. I came to realize that the reason we talk about the fall so much is that we each have our personal "fall" moments, that we each have to step forth from the innocence of our personal Edens, and make mistakes, and that somehow there is an advantage in this. I didn't get why, but I trusted the feelings I was getting, and sort of left it at that, hoping that somehow I would muddle out how to act on this knowledge later. By the time we left the temple, I had largely set it aside, something to worry about later. What I didn't know about that moment, that little tidbit of light, is that a loving Heavenly Father, who knows me better than I know myself, who wants the best for me, was preparing me for what would happen a little over 24 hours later, when I made the mistake of ignoring several promptings of the spirit that would have helped me avoid seeing a movie that left me feeling sick inside, and like I had betrayed the God I've covenanted to follow.
I came home that night, and one of the first things I did, in my haste to avoid ever feeling that way again, was to text one of the friends who invited me, and tell her I didn't think I could hang out with them any more. And then I got on my knees, and I prayed...I prayed about a lot of things, and I told Heavenly Father about that text. Immediately, I knew that had been the wrong thing to do. As I told Him about the kind of man I wanted to be, I felt a gentle nudge in my heart--a question: "But how will you be that kind of man if you never spend time around other people? How will you learn to say no when it's hard if you just withdraw from others all the time?"
Not finding any real good answers to that question, I went to bed, still troubled. I woke up troubled. I did my grocery shopping troubled. And then, my wonderful little sister, who I had shared most of this with, because she's pretty much my best friend, although now that she's engaged, I barely ever see her, texted me these wise words--"personally I think making mistakes is the best if it causes change" (emphasis added). And that's when I got it. Does the mistake still hurt? Do I still wish I'd walked out of that movie? You betcha. But in a way, my making that mistake was a good thing, because it finally pushed me over the edge into action. I finally felt enough pain to drive me to make a real commitment to overcome a problem. Just as it was better for Adam and Eve to Fall, so that they could grow, it is better for me to be putting myself out there with other people, where yes, I might make mistakes and do things that make me feel like a jerk, because how else do you learn how to stand up and say "enough is enough"?
Let me make the point I'm trying put forth very clear here: I'm not saying that it's a good idea to knowingly walk into a situation that I know is going to end in me doing something I shouldn't. In retrospect, knowing what I know now, I should have listened to my feelings. I've learned that now, the hard way. But sometimes that's the way that learning has to occur. In order to get good at anything, one must start out being terrible at it; it's very rare that someone just picks something up and is awesome at it from the moment they start. Perhaps such people exist, but I'm not one of them.
So, I made a mistake the other night. Does that mean I withdraw back into my antisocial bubble and live a life of solitude so that no one ever pressures me into doing something wrong? Does it mean that I choose from now on never to spend any time with anyone who I have not first vetted to make sure that their standards and mine coincide? I think not. I think it means that I pick myself up, dust off, and get back out there, knowing now what I'm really up against, and ready to stand up to it the way I should. Because Heavenly Father never meant for us to be recluses, or to spend our lives within the walls of the temple. He meant for each of us to get out there into the dark, crazy, sinful world, and take a little of the temple with us, to lead each other to do the right thing and become more like him. He knows we'll make mistakes-that point is moot. The question is, do we learn when we fall?
-Psalms 30:5 (King James Version)
I'm not entirely sure that this will be a daily thing for the entire month (if you missed what's going on with that, check out this post), but it could be. As it turns out, I waste a lot of time on a lot of worthless stuff, so when you remove that, I have a lot of spare time; time I can use to do things I really want to-like write a journal, and study a ton of scriptures, which then leads me to want to share stuff. Since I'm still working on the whole "recluse" thing, that means I'll probably come here for that.
Thursday night, I went to the temple with some friends. It was good, as going to the temple ought always to be. I had a lot of questions come to mind during the endowment, which is a bit unusual for me. One thing that I have pondered a lot, and felt like I've never really gotten a satisfying answer on is the Fall (not autumn, silly, Adam). It's not that the idea of Adam falling and us ending up in this state to be tested bothers me-I understand that part. And I get that the Fall was necessary so that we could come to earth, and so that the Atonement could be provided. I get that it puts us in a position where we have agency. But somehow it just always seemed like we focus on it a lot more than we should for all of that. I mean, every investigator has to be taught about the fall, usually the second time they meet with missionaries. And it's a pretty big chunk of the text in that lesson. On my mission, I always figured that this was because we had to teach people the correct way of viewing it, and help them understand that there is no such thing as "original sin", that men are to be held accountable for themselves and themselves alone. And I think to a degree that was why we focused on it in the mission. But that doesn't explain why some people have referred to is as one of the "Three Pillars of the Church", or why it's brought up so much in the scriptures. I think there's more to it than that.
On Thursday night, as I pondered it, I came to a partial conclusion, but I still didn't fully understand. I came to realize that the reason we talk about the fall so much is that we each have our personal "fall" moments, that we each have to step forth from the innocence of our personal Edens, and make mistakes, and that somehow there is an advantage in this. I didn't get why, but I trusted the feelings I was getting, and sort of left it at that, hoping that somehow I would muddle out how to act on this knowledge later. By the time we left the temple, I had largely set it aside, something to worry about later. What I didn't know about that moment, that little tidbit of light, is that a loving Heavenly Father, who knows me better than I know myself, who wants the best for me, was preparing me for what would happen a little over 24 hours later, when I made the mistake of ignoring several promptings of the spirit that would have helped me avoid seeing a movie that left me feeling sick inside, and like I had betrayed the God I've covenanted to follow.
I came home that night, and one of the first things I did, in my haste to avoid ever feeling that way again, was to text one of the friends who invited me, and tell her I didn't think I could hang out with them any more. And then I got on my knees, and I prayed...I prayed about a lot of things, and I told Heavenly Father about that text. Immediately, I knew that had been the wrong thing to do. As I told Him about the kind of man I wanted to be, I felt a gentle nudge in my heart--a question: "But how will you be that kind of man if you never spend time around other people? How will you learn to say no when it's hard if you just withdraw from others all the time?"
Not finding any real good answers to that question, I went to bed, still troubled. I woke up troubled. I did my grocery shopping troubled. And then, my wonderful little sister, who I had shared most of this with, because she's pretty much my best friend, although now that she's engaged, I barely ever see her, texted me these wise words--"personally I think making mistakes is the best if it causes change" (emphasis added). And that's when I got it. Does the mistake still hurt? Do I still wish I'd walked out of that movie? You betcha. But in a way, my making that mistake was a good thing, because it finally pushed me over the edge into action. I finally felt enough pain to drive me to make a real commitment to overcome a problem. Just as it was better for Adam and Eve to Fall, so that they could grow, it is better for me to be putting myself out there with other people, where yes, I might make mistakes and do things that make me feel like a jerk, because how else do you learn how to stand up and say "enough is enough"?
Let me make the point I'm trying put forth very clear here: I'm not saying that it's a good idea to knowingly walk into a situation that I know is going to end in me doing something I shouldn't. In retrospect, knowing what I know now, I should have listened to my feelings. I've learned that now, the hard way. But sometimes that's the way that learning has to occur. In order to get good at anything, one must start out being terrible at it; it's very rare that someone just picks something up and is awesome at it from the moment they start. Perhaps such people exist, but I'm not one of them.
So, I made a mistake the other night. Does that mean I withdraw back into my antisocial bubble and live a life of solitude so that no one ever pressures me into doing something wrong? Does it mean that I choose from now on never to spend any time with anyone who I have not first vetted to make sure that their standards and mine coincide? I think not. I think it means that I pick myself up, dust off, and get back out there, knowing now what I'm really up against, and ready to stand up to it the way I should. Because Heavenly Father never meant for us to be recluses, or to spend our lives within the walls of the temple. He meant for each of us to get out there into the dark, crazy, sinful world, and take a little of the temple with us, to lead each other to do the right thing and become more like him. He knows we'll make mistakes-that point is moot. The question is, do we learn when we fall?
Wow, son. You are awesome. You set a high bar to emulate. I'm gonna hafta step up my game.
ReplyDelete