Of Freedom and Despair

Every man and woman who walks the earth is a union of three natures:  intelligence, spirit, and physical body.  The Prophet Joseph Smith taught that only in this union can there be found a fullness of joy.  Our intelligence is eternal; our spirit an inheritance from God, the Father of spirits; our bodies, mortal vehicles of trial and testing to be placed in the grave and then raised in the resurrection to immortality through the redeeming power of Jesus Christ.

Before we were born and earth’s history began we all lived as spirits in the presence of God, where the whole plan for this earth and its purpose were presented to us.  In a great act of courage, greater than I believe that we can imagine, we each agreed with that plan and volunteered to be born into this world of trial and sorrow, but also of potential achievement and triumph.  The exercise of our free will centered on voluntary obedience to Jesus Christ would make all of the ultimate difference.  As the scriptures  relate, many there were who shied away from the risk and in rebellion sought another way where freedom would be denied us while all of our needs and comforts would be provided for without any exercise of our will or moral effort.

Those who rejected the plan of the Father and rebelled against Him before His face were cast from His presence directly to earth, without birth, without any future or hope.  The plan of moral trial in physical bodies being rejected by them, they could not participate in it.  For those there would be no bodies, no progression, no returning to the presence of God.  Having lost all hope, damned, or stopped in their eternal progression these became devils seeking forever the sorrow of those who chose a better way.  As if to reach for a blistering balm in other’s suffering, they tempt us to rebel against God here on earth and misuse all that a loving Father has provided to His children.

One day near Hallowe’en, more than thirty years ago, I thought to capture in verse something of the attitude of these unembodied spirits towards us, who chose before our birth to follow the plan of the Father as fulfilled by Jesus Christ, His Son.  These devils wish us no good thing, but evil and destruction continually, envying every good thing with which God has blessed us, not the least of which are all of the sensations and experiences that a physical existence in a physical world can provide.  They can see, but they cannot touch.  But they can speak to our spirits, and they each day encourage us to follow them, which is what sin is.

Dance of the Damned

’Round and ’round and sing around,

Swirl the spinning sky with sound.

Twirling, grinning, spinning down

Franticly upon them.

Fill the earth and spread around,

Make the awful beauty frown,

Rip it down, infest the ground,

Though you cannot touch it.

Curse the bodies never known

’Till they’re thrown into a mound.

Bring them blind and blinder still,

Swing the chain ’til you fill

All the world with sorrow;

For if we end tomorrow

They must die tonight.

Twist their sweet virginity.

Drain their new infinity.

Waste their pure divinity.

’Round and ’round, let song abound,

Swirl the human soup around.

Stir them floating, bloating, drowned,

Crowned with our iniquity.

Of Early Results and Final Scores

When I was recently in San Diego, local football fans were vocally wild with excitement when their NFL team, the San Diego Chargers, was winning its Monday night game 24-0 at half time.  It was all over for the visiting Denver Broncos.  But they played the second half anyway.  When the game was really over by the clock and the rules the final score was 24-35, and the Denver Broncos were the winners.  

In 2004, the arch rivals New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox played each other for the American League baseball championship and the right to go to the World Series.  The New York Yankees won the first 3 games of the best of 7 series.  With 4 games left and the Yankees needing to win only 1 of the 4, the series was all over.  Unfortunately for the Yankees (and their fans in my household), the New York team would not win another game that year and Boston would not lose another game that year, winning the American League championship and then sweeping the World Series in 4 games.  (For the benefit of Boston Red Sox fans I will mention that this was the team’s first World Series championship in almost a century.)

As they say in sports, that’s why they play the games.

As in sports, so often in life, there is virtue in playing to the end of the game and not leaving the field before it is really over.  Like all virtues, that virtue is often challenged in this life.  Many wars are won or lost in the hearts of the participants even before the first battle.  Many are the voices who try to call the election before the first real vote is cast and long before the last one is counted.  Many are the men and women, boys and girls, whose careers are ended before they have begun, or at least after the first setback.  In real life, often it is so, but far too often it is so because people believed it to be so, not because the end was really inevitable.

We are and should be inspired by those who have won through determined perseverance.  The persevering struggles of such technological pioneers as Thomas Edison and the Wright Brothers gave them triumphs that changed the world.  How tempting it must have been to them at many points and after many failures to give up and say that “it” could not be done.  How poorer the world would be if they had called the game early and accepted failure.

Perhaps no less inspiring are those who struggled to the end in apparent defeat, only to make a greater victory possible for their friends and allies or sometimes for themselves.  The most famous battle of the Texas Revolution was the apparent defeat at the Alamo.  The Greek defeat by the Persians at Thermopylae is as famous as the Greek victory at Salamis that it helped make possible.  Abraham Lincoln’s loss in his Senate contest with Stephen A. Douglas sowed the seeds for Lincoln’s win against Douglas two years later for President.  Moses fell from royal glory among the Egyptians to become a nomadic shepherd before being chosen by God to be His prophet to deliver Israel from Egypt and restore to them the laws and ordinances to guide them for thousands of years. 

In our own personal lives, it is only those who persevere who win.  There is no easy triumph in the battle of life.  It is intended to be hard.  But the end is also intended to be known and can be known.   The Father and the Son discussed life and its purpose before the world was created.  They revealed to us that purpose and the end to give us direction and hope: 

We will go down, for there is space there, and we will take of these materials, and we will make an earth whereon these may dwell; and we will prove them herewith, to see if they will do all things whatsoever the Lord their God shall command them. . .  and they . . . shall have glory added upon their heads for ever and ever.   (Abraham 3:24-26)

The ancient American prophet Nephi explained the proving process this way:

Wherefore, ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men. Wherefore, if ye shall press forward, feasting upon the word of Christ, and endure to the end, behold, thus saith the Father: Ye shall have eternal life. (2 Nephi 31:20)

There are numerous contrary voices, who would either say that salvation is easy or impossible.  Neither is right.  The pressing forward with a focus on Christ is how each of us can be transformed, how the goodness is refined from a decidedly alloyed ore, “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:13).

None of us knows how long will be his or her mortality, but we each must play it to the end.  We cannot call the game early.  If we travel and reach the end in company with Christ, then success is certain even as seeing the game throughout all of its stages is worth the playing.  After all, that is why we play.

Of Vice Presidents and Manners

One of the most moving scenes in the entire Harry Potter series of books by J.K. Rowling is the death of beloved headmaster, Albus Dumbledore.  A standard element of much good fiction writing is the presence of a character representing a deliverer, sometimes referred to by scholars of fiction as being a “Christ figure.”  Such a character in the novel serves as a touchstone of good, who is rarely the main character but is a steady and constant central person to guide and often deliver the main character from danger and evil.  Gandalf serves that role in the Lord of the Rings trilogy of J.R.R. Tolkien.  Albus Dumbledore fulfills that role for Harry Potter and his friends.

In the scene to which I refer, Dumbledore is on a balcony of a high tower, cornered, disarmed, and surrounded by merciless enemies impatient for his murder.  I quote just a few lines for my purpose:

            “Good evening, Amycus,” said Dumbledore calmly, as though welcoming the man to a tea party.  “And you’ve brought Alecto too. . . . Charming. . .”

            The woman gave an angry little titter.  “Think your little jokes’ll help you on your deathbed then?” she jeered.

            “Jokes?  No, no, these are manners,” replied Dumbledore.

            (J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, p.593)

Manners.  Perhaps they seem extravagant for a man facing sure death, but why not, why not retain high humanity in the last moments of mortality?  Outside of novels and in the real life where we live, what I find distressing is the absence of manners in places where they should be found.

A prominent example is the recent debate between the 2012 candidates for vice president of the United States, the second highest executive office in the land.  This is a lofty and important office, one of only two to which a man or woman ascends by the vote and permission of the entire nation.  Many vice presidents have gone on to become president.  A debate among these candidates is an important opportunity to help voters discern who would make the better government leader, deserving of their support. 

Respect for the electorate as well as each other would seem to call for courtesy and a display of good manners.  And yet the current, sitting vice president displayed very poor manners, frequently interrupting his opponent and openly laughing at serious arguments about serious subjects.  The assertion and presentation of views in public debate can be sharp and indeed critical of the views of the other, but courtesy to the electorate would allow them to hear each argument made fully and without interruption, and respect for the views of one another would create an atmosphere that fosters a thoughtful consideration of the issues.  Such manners were largely absent in the public conduct of the current vice president of the United States in this nationally televised debate.  I might add that the debate moderator, who should have encouraged better conduct, herself showed poor conduct, frequently interrupting each of the candidates to insert herself as a third participant in the debate.

Society exists only by respect that people have for one another.  We extend our courtesies that allow all of us with our own personalities and interests and characters to live in close proximity to one another and even to be ready to cooperate from time to time.  It tears the social fabric to undermine that civility.

About a year ago I visited Tokyo, one of the most densely populated places on the globe.  I was astonished at how relatively quiet the city was.  I do not think I ever heard a car horn sounded, though I witnessed driving practices that would have quickly provoked anxious beeping in the United States.  I asked my hosts about that.  All of the cars were equipped with horns, but I was informed that it would be considered discourteous in Japan to sound them other than for emergency purposes.  I am sure that Japanese drivers get on each other’s nerves as frequently as American drivers do, but the incidence of driver’s rage is significantly reduced by observance of this courtesy.

And then there was my recent visit to Johannesburg, South Africa.   There is a lot of hope that South Africa can play a major leadership role in the economic and social development of much of the rest of the continent, the poorest of all the seven continents.  The nation has a good head start on its neighbors, with a functioning representative government with free and competitive elections, laws supported by an independent judiciary, a diversifying economy, including much local industry, and a strong banking system. 

What surprised and depressed me was what I saw of South African homes.  Traveling throughout the city I did not see a single family home that was not enclosed in a concrete or fenced stockade, topped in barbwire, concertina wire, or even electrically-charged wiring.  During the day people seemed pleasant enough, but come nighttime, families retreated into their fortified compounds, however small.  Every nation has crime, but not every nation lacks the minimum of civility needed to allow people to sleep at night without dread of violent assault on their property and person.

I do not doubt that we can find similar zones in parts of American cities, but I have never seen anything so pervasive as what I observed in Johannesburg.  I am told that it was not racially based, given the history of difficult race relations in South Africa, but rather economically based.  Not only was there little respect for property among many in the population, but too little respect for each other.  I hope and trust that things are getting better there or will get better.

I fear what the erosion of respect for property and person might produce in the United States.  Kind words and practices of courtesy reinforce through our conduct our recognition of each other’s humanity.  What we witnessed in the vice presidential debate was a courser, callous style of human interaction.  We encounter similar scenes too often.  I pray that in places where respect and courtesy are lacking I have not seen the future for our society, or for the erosion of our society.  It is not a happy way to live.