From the Point of View of Sirius

Some of the early French existentialists were fond of talking about "the point of view of Sirius."  For example, Camus in the Myth of Sisyphus remarked that "from the point of view of Sirius", in ten thousand years all of Goethe's works would be dust and his name forgotten. I mention this because it's a shorthand expression for a worldview I have been struggling with for a long time.

I learned from Facebook this evening that a high-school classmate of mine died around 5 p.m. today.  Apparently she had been suffering from cancer and took her own life.  Now, I haven't seen or spoken with this person since my high-school days, which were long ago and far away.  The last I remember of her, she was a tall, gangly teenage red-head who was the center on our varsity girls' basketball team.  She was teased a lot for being so tall and for her freckles.  I think at times the teasing was actually severe enough to be cruel.  She was a nice girl and didn't deserve any of it, of course.

Since then, she has grown up, married, had children, and then grandchildren.  Who knows all of the struggles, heartaches, labors, challenges, achievements, joys, and sorrows she experienced in all those years that have passed since I knew her?  I certainly don't.  Those who were closest to her through it all perhaps know much of it, but no one really has any idea what it was like to be her, living her life, seeing the world through her eyes.  What was it all for?

I'm reading a book now by Neal A. Maxwell entitled, The Way Things Really Are.  It's a fine specimen of the self-assured, slightly sanctimonious, but "beefy" faith-literature that was much more prevalent 25 years ago than it is today.  Hey, just consider the title.  Here it is, boys and girls, THIS is the way it is.  It is this way because God has told us it is this way, via the scriptures, the Church, and the prophets.  End of discussion.  All we need to do is accept this worldview and follow the path laid out for us.  Obey and everything will be fine.  You will be safe.  Things will all work out, and after you die, great stuff will happen that will make up for all the "testing" we have to undergo here below.

Is this faith?  I'm not so sure.  Do those who say, "I know the Church is true" really know what they are saying?  For one thing, how can a church be "true"?  It's like saying you know that BYU is "true", or the state of Utah is "true."  But the real point here is that faith is not really "knowledge" in the way most of us understand "knowledge."  There is a teaching in Mormonism that faith can indeed lead one to a knowledge of spiritual realities, but only after much time and much practice. 

Often in fast and testimony meetings, small children march up to the lectern and say (in one version or another), "I know the church is true."  I don't understand why people think this is okay, beyond the mere fact that it's "cute."  

Right now all I can say is that I believe (i.e., hope and trust) that the gospel of Jesus Christ, of which the Church is a vehicle, is true.  If I "knew" that it was true, I wouldn't still get shivers when I think of "the point of view of Sirius." 

"Ask the Missionaries!"

Now that I'm firmly ensconced within the fold, the missionaries don't come a-callin' quite as often as they used to, but they stay in touch.  So I have a little scratchpad where I occasionally scribble down questions I have about the finer details of Mormon life that I'm not yet quite clear about.  Most of these questions are good-faith, I-really-want-to-now queries, but I will admit that sometimes I include a question that's more a matter of mischief-making.  You know, like, "Bwahahahahaha, let's see what the missionaries can do with THIS!" 

Well, they're stopping by tonight, and I have one question of each type for them.  See if you can guess which is which:

1.  Does reading the Ensign count as part of "daily scripture study"?

2.  Why do we go to all the trouble of trying to convert living people to the faith -- given all the hassle and expense -- when we can just wait for them to die and then do their temple work for them?

Anyway, I'm sure we'll have a good visit, we always do.  Salt of the earth, thems is.

Of Things Peculiar

I knew quite a lot about Mormon culture and Mormon history prior to my conversion.  When Mormons refer to themselves (with some degree of pride) as a "peculiar people", I understand a good deal of what that means.  And I like it.  Most non-members think the emphasis on genealogical research is pretty strange, but it makes perfect sense in the light of Mormon beliefs about the afterlife.  So that wasn't something that ever made me scratch my head.  But I must admit that there are a few other "peculiarities" that still occasionally cause me to wonder what I've gotten myself into.  So in the name of good, clean fun, here they are in all their peculiar glory:

Food storage.  I haven't actually gotten much of this in my ward yet.  We did have a lesson about how to put together a "72-hour kit" for emergency situations, but I know that doesn't really count.  Non-members understand the wisdom of having medical supplies, food, water, and fuel on hand for emergencies.  But having a one year supply of surplus food stored in your basement really is strange no matter how you cut it, and even stranger if you let it slip that it's sort of a religious obligation to have it on hand.

Jesus was born on April 6.  I had never heard of this AT ALL until Elder Bednar alluded to it at the last General Conference.  I chided the missionaries for never filling me in on this.  They acted like it was on par with not drinking coffee, i.e., something that everyone outside the Church just knows about Mormons.  "It's right there in section 20!" they told me.  So I checked out section 20, which I had read several times before, so how could I have missed it?  And, lo and behold, there it is, plain as day -- if you squint your eyes and blink a few times.

The Sunday "dress code."  I'm not talking about dressing up for church.  That's not peculiar.  What's peculiar to me is that the old guys (high priests) wear full-on suits and the younger dudes (EQ and Aaronic priesthood) wear white shirts and ties (no jackets).  It could have put me in a quandary fashion-wise because I'm an old guy but still in the lesser priesthood.  But I hate wearing white shirts.

Thee, thou, thy, etc.  I still have trouble with these archaic pronouns when I say prayers in meetings.  I have no objection to them in principle, but I just forget to use them.  Once I've mastered them, I will move on to stuff like "insomuch as" and "wresting." 

"Even."  Another linguistic quirk -- the word "even" is occasionally used to preface a redundancy, as in, "Our Lord and Savior, EVEN Jesus Christ."  Whenever I hear this, it makes me smile. 

I'm sure I'll be adding to this list later as other things occur to me.  What are YOUR favorites?

Congrats to Atheists!

Congratulations to all atheists who have come out of the closet in recent times, thanks to the fruitful labors of Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris, et. al.  Having been an atheist for several years myself, I am sincere in this sentiment.  You have nothing to be ashamed of, non-believers, and those who would shame or stigmatize you into silence or obscurity are thankfully becoming fewer and fewer in number.  It's all good.

Now that we've got that squared away, I have a question.  What now?

An acquaintance of mine is a very outspoken atheist.  Whenever the word "God" is mentioned, sometimes even when used in an oath, she blurts out, "I don't believe in god!"  or "There is no god!"  Now, this doesn't get much of a rise out of me personally, having been where she is for awhile, and I suspect it's less and less of an issue with most people.  At one time most would have considered it ballsy, but these days it's just seen as exhibitionism or simply regarded with indifference. 

So what I want to ask this person -- but of course I don't, because I want to be polite -- is something like, "Ummm.... okay ... why are you telling me this?  Because, really, it's OKAY with me that you don't believe in god(s).  So why do you keep repeating this like it's some kind of conditioned response to the god-word?" 

One answer COULD be that whether or not she is aware of it, she's preaching the gospel of non-belief.  She wants other people not to believe in God, because -- well, because atheism is a good thing and would make the world a better place?  Mmmm... debatable.   How about because you need to have your own unbelief validated?  I think that might be a big part of it.

I never argue with atheists, just as when I was an atheist, I never argued with believers.  It's too hard to precisely define your terms when you're discussing "god", and lacking a precise definition of terms, any sort of debate or dialectic is futile.   My stock answer, as an atheist, whenever anyone asked me if I believed in God, was, "Which one?"  Invariably, no one really knew.

But now I have a pretty good idea (conceptually) of what I mean by the word "god" when I profess faith in God.  I've struggled and fought to achieve clarity about this idea of God for most of my adult life.  I think I finally succeeded, at least to my own satisfaction.  Much of the appeal of Mormonism for me is that fact that its ideas about the Godhead fall so closely in line with those I had worked out for myself prior to seriously investigating the faith.

Hey, it's not just me! 

Anyway, if you haven't already, go read The God Who Weeps by Tyrell and Fiona Givens. 

The Book of Mormon Tells the Truth About Spiritual Things

The title of this post comes from an article I read recently from an old issue of Sunstone.  It was written by Peggy Fletcher Stack.  It's basically her testimony.  In it, she writes of the Book of  Mormon: "It won't do to say these are faith-promoting stories but not literal events."  But then later on, the most she can say about it is: "The Book of Mormon tells the truth about spiritual things."  This is something I'm always telling myself, too.  It's sort of my "minimalist testimony" of the Book of Mormon.  But it got me to thinking: What do I mean by that?

Well, one of the more obvious spiritual truths that saturates the Book of Mormon is something that I've heard called the "pride cycle."  Peggy Fletcher Stack calls it "cycles of righteousness and falling away."  The Book of Mormon emphasizes that there are two main sources of pride - wealth and intellectual attainment.

A society that develops a self-congratulatory mood because of its riches and technological superiority is headed for trouble.  There is something called "hard-heartedness."  If a heart becomes too hardened, it no longer looks to God for anything.  There is the illusion of self-sufficiency, a refusal to countenance dependency or weakness; no perceived lack, no sense of having fallen short or missed the target, and therefore no recognition of the need for repentance.  Hard-heartedness is a societal as well as an individual characteristic.

I detect hard-heartedness in the mocking tone that so many people use when talking about religion; in ways of relating to others dominated by sarcasm and belittlement; in the complete absence of empathy, mercy, and compassion toward those who are in prison (a glaring symptom, in my view).  Another prevalent sign of hard-heartedness is a strident demand for fairness and equity that seems to stem from a desire to knock everyone else down to one's own level of dissatisfaction and frustration.  Above all, and this is another feature the Book of Mormon identifies with societies in decline, there is an acceptance of contention and strife as the normal course of things.  In fact, our media culture seems to be based almost entirely on conflict and controversy.  It's what sells magazines and keeps people watching TV. 

Conversely, anything that threatens to soften one's heart is frequently rejected as sentimental, tagged as emotional self-indulgence, "magical thinking", or weakness.  A softening of one's heart can be a bit scary.  Many people fend it off with alcohol, food, drugs, or "business as usual."  No one wants to be vulnerable, because the way the carnal mind operates, vulnerability is often thought of as a prelude to being attacked.  But to experience a softening of one's heart, one's guard must be let down, at least for a little while.  The key is to experience one's weaknesses and fears full-on, and to then see how this is the common fate of all of us on this planet.  Then comes something akin to the opening up of awareness that Moses experienced on Mt. Sinai while conversing with God: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed.  Mormon goes even further in the Book of Helaman: O how great is the nothingness of the children of men; yea, even they are less than the dust of the earth.

And yet ... to begin to understand that in spite of our nothingness, in spite of the apparent insignificance and contemptibleness of humans spinning around on this tiny speck in the endless void, we are somehow, at the same time, God's supreme concern:

For behold, this is my work and my glory -- to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man.

Faith is a Form of Denial

There is the world, and then there is the world of appearances.  Sometimes I think what "faith" is, in general, is the denial that these two are the same.

What the world of appearances offers us is typically not very encouraging.  I may have escaped slavery, war, poverty, hunger, grinding labor, loneliness, or the tedium that often accompanies material satisfactions, but  I will never escape the constant dangers of catastrophic accidents, the misery of illness, or the inevitability of death.  Plus the fact that I can only see what's in front of my eyes, or know what my feeble mind is capable of grasping.

What the world of appearances offers us is a brief flash of life, light, and intelligence -- just a nanosecond in an infinity of darkness -- and that is all.  There is a bleak pointlessness to it that overwhelms all of our little hopes, tragedies, and achievements.  Some people are comfortable with this, or at least say they are.  I am not.  It scares me.  It saddens me. 

Thus, the world of appearances.  My primal faith is that the world is not "really" this way.  In fact, I refuse to accept that it is.  I deny it.  The world of appearances is so discordant, so out of harmony with everything instinctive to the human spirit, that it simply cannot be the final word about the way things really are. 

This primal faith, this denial, goes out into the world and searches for something to justify it.  For the Christian, that something is the simple/bold/crazy/amazing declaration,  Jesus Christ rose from the dead. 

What Does It Mean to be a "Special Witness"?

The Quorum of the Twelve and the First Presidency are each referred to as "special witnesses", or "special witnesses of Christ."  In the most recent (2009) edition of Gospel Principles, this latter expression was revised from the previous (1997) edition to read, "special witnesses of the name of Christ", which is how it is phrased in scripture (D&C 107:23).  Why this change?  And what does this term "special witness" mean?  Does it mean that each of these men has actually seen and talked with Jesus Christ in the flesh?  Many members of the Church assume that this is the case, but is this specifically taught somewhere in official Church literature?  D&C 107 states that the Twelve are "traveling councilors" and are special witnesses of the name of Christ "in all the world."  This suggests to me that it has something to do with opening missions.  

Any clarification of this topic would be appreciated.