Tips on Reading the Book of Mormon Effectively

Hello, all! I'm getting close to the end of my sixth read-through of the Book of Mormon, and I feel compelled to write another blog post singing the work's praises. But this entry will be a bit different. In this post, I intend to submit another entry in the "how-to" genre, and tell you all some strategies that have really helped me get the most out of that amazing work of scripture. There are seven "tips" below--read them, ponder them, and (if you like) tell me what you think.

1. Don't let yourself get attached to any one interpretation of the book, even if it's an orthodox one: This first one might seem a little counter-intuitive. One might ask: aren't there definitive, true ways of understanding the Book of Mormon? To that I say: well, yes and no. The Book of Mormon is most definitely true, quite possibly more so than any other text on earth. But "truth" here is something more than anything you can put it words. Reading the Book of Mormon as an ancient text (i.e. what the Church teaches) is a very fruitful method for understanding the text, but it actually falls short in a lot of places. With that interpretation in mind, any and all anachronisms (i.e. things like elephants and horses--elements of the book's text that don't make sense in its historical context) will catch you off guard. Quite a few people have fallen away from the Church because of these contradictions, and it's quite a shame. You see, instead of using an interpretation as they should have, they let it break free from its reins and trample them.

However, I'm not saying that you should regard the Book of Mormon as a positively a-historical. Reading the text as a fiction or as an allegory also constitute interpretations, and they will endanger your testimony even more surely than the one above. In one sense the Book of Mormon is neither history nor allegory, and in another sense it is both. Likewise, the Book of Mormon is both a simple text and a profound one, and it contains the voice of both the human and the divine. 

Quite simply put, the Book of Mormon is alive. Like any creature (animal or human), it resists being put in boxes, and so its spiritual sense will flee if you try to encapsulate it in any category. To really get to know the Book of Mormon, you must respect its autonomy as a being with vitality and boundless life. Let it dance in front of you--don't tell yourself that it should be doing one thing and not another, but simply enjoy the parade of images, connections, and emotions that it brings before you.

I didn't always follow this advice. For a long time I was committed to understanding the work symbolically, and I would comb the work for ways I could understand its stories as allegories for spiritual or physical realities. It's true that you can understand the work this way in many places, but there are also many places in which that interpretation does not work. Though I didn't realize it at the time, I was trying to put a leash on the text's indwelling life, and as such it distrusted me. It only gifted me with superficial spiritual pleasures, and I thus missed out on its deep-dwelling inner riches.

To know the Book of Mormon as it is, you have to trust that it means something independent of any one point of view. Put away your leash, your bridle, and let the book approach you on its own terms. So doing you will find something remarkable--instead of encountering the buzzing, booming confusion you expected, you realize that the Book of Mormon's power and grace is simply too grand to be contained by any category. It is expansive, full, transcendent, and any attempt to reduce it through description will be met by the work's distrust of you.

If you encounter the book in the way I describe, you will find something even more remarkable: by meeting and getting to know each other, you and the Book of Mormon transform each other. In the first sense, you will come to know the book as something that means something specific to your life and interests. Though you can never describe that "something" in its fullness, by continuing to read the book you discover that it is essentially a "personal seer stone" (to use a phrase from Adam S. Miller) that gives you insight into yourself, your world, and your relationship with God. 

But more powerfully, the Book of Mormon will transform you. As you read the book more and more, you'll find that its spirit pervades your day-to-day life. Its principles (more often the unspoken ones than those deliberately mentioned) will creep into your mind and start affecting the way you think and act. Instead of viewing things while in the midst of them, you'll suddenly start seeing them from a more divine point of view. But then you realize that this is just the book lending you a bit of its transcendent vitality. The  Book of Mormon stands above all categories and distinctions, and by reading it you slowly climb the ladder to share in its eternal perspective. 

2. Beware of your anticipation for climaxes: When I read the Book of Mormon for the first time back in 2012, I looked forward to 3 Nephi with eager anticipation. It seems to be everyone's favorite part of the book, and I wondered to myself what it was that was so powerful about it. When I got to 3 Nephi 11, I was pleasantly surprised by the story of the still, small voice proclaiming Christ's coming, as well as his invitation for the masses to come and feel his wounds for themselves. But to my annoyance, Jesus followed this well-known incident by giving a repetitive, didactic exposition on baptism. Now, there's nothing wrong with teachings on baptism. It just seemed to me at the time that it was poorly placed, for its irrelevance to the situation interrupted the flow of literary power I was expecting.

There are other places like this, too. The beginning and end of 2 Nephi are some of the deepest parts in the entire book, but they are separated from each other by the difficult Isaiah chapters. Moreover, the end of the book is interrupted by a sudden treatise on infant baptism, frustrating hopes that it would end on an organic climax. And finally, the book doesn't end with 3 Nephi--after Christ comes, everything (eventually) goes very, very wrong. 

But this perspective misses something incredibly important about the Book of Mormon. If what I said in the previous entry is true--that the Book of Mormon is a living, breathing reality that resists encapsulation in categories--then do you expect it to submit to any one thread of "literary flow" (for lack of a better word)? For the Book of Mormon doesn't fit fully into any interpretation, and this includes temporal ones.

I said above that the Book of Mormon sees the world from an eternal perspective, but by "eternal" I don't mean with an eye to "everlasting time". Instead, I mean that the Book of Mormon is essentially timeless. The spiritual sense of the book stands outside the chronology of the text, and as such its appearance in the text isn't inhibited by restraints of causation and temporal succession. It will, so to speak, peek through the text in multiple places at once. By this I mean that certain parts of the Book of Mormon are far more connected with each other than with the bits that chronologically surround them.

Take the death and destruction in 3 Nephi, for instance--something very similar (down to specifics) happens in Helaman 5, where a group of Nephite and Lamanite prisoners pray to have a mist of darkness be lifted from over them. Moreover, when they eventually dispel the darkness through their faith, the fire that surrounds them is very similar to the harmless fire and glory that surrounds the children later in 3 Nephi. On a different note, there are at least three separate instances in the book of prisoners escaping captivity by getting their captors drunk, and at many points (especially in Alma), newly converted people fall to the ground as if they were dead, only to leap upon their feet a while later.

You could interpret these repetitions to mean that Joseph Smith composed the book himself and was just too lazy to come up with new stories. However, this perspective doesn't reflect the effect that these repetitions have had on me as a reader. As I read and re-read the Book of Mormon, I eventually found myself thinking less in terms of time, and more in terms of state. I choose the word "state"  for the lack of a better term, but by it I mean a perspective with an eye toward the state things are in, as opposed to the place or time in which they are located. Not only does the Book of Mormon explicitly reference past or future events within the text, but the aforementioned repetition in the text constantly calls us to see elements in the story in connection with other elements. And when the reader becomes acclimatized to the book's perspective, they find what I found: that the Book of Mormon shows you how to see things in a way independent of space and time (see this post for a deeper exploration into the relationship between place/time and state).

At least in this respect, the Book of Mormon is very much like a dream. I quote from the Neo-Jungian psychologist James Hillman in his book The Dream and the Underworld (link):

"The image [dream] approach to 'then' is quite different. This approach always puts 'then' into relation with 'when,' rather than into a series of other 'thens.' The events that occur in a dream are imagined to be taking place without concern for time, as if all at the same time, where their temporal succession doesn't matter, rather than in the straight linear connection of a story. [...] From the imagistic perspective that reads the dream as a statement of essence, neither chicken nor egg comes first. For we are not in a story-time but in an image-space, where chicken and egg mutually require each other and are simultaneous correlatives.  Notions of origin and of causality are also invalid constructs in an underworld [dream] perspective, for which time does not enter and the image presents an eternal (always going on, repetitious) state of soul."

According to Hillman, the dream's purpose is to move you away from the concrete, literalistic perspective of day-to-day life and toward the elastically imagistic perspective that he believes lies beyond death. We are not supposed to hold on to absolute nature of day-to-day truth, he says, but instead view the world in terms of autonomous images or archetypes that peek out at us from behind the curtain of daylight. And like the dream, the Book of Mormon does just this. By presenting an inwardly disjointed tale full of repetition, internal prophecy, and recollection, the reader starts loosening her grip on the apparently absolute character of time and space in the world. Just as the events of prophecy are causally ambiguous (i.e. did the prophecy ensure a future event, or did the future event "reach back" and create the prophecy?), you start seeing the world not in terms of causation, but in terms of timeless meaning. And just as various Book of Mormon characters share names with other Book of Mormon characters, you start seeing your life (at least in part) as a repetition or extension of people with whom you have a connection.

But this will only happen if you're willing to adopt such a timeless perspective. If you read the book hoping for a gripping or moving story, you'll be disappointed (except on a very small scale, perhaps). If you really want the Book of Mormon to change your perspective on life, you'll have to read it in terms of depth, and give up anything more than the most basic sense of forward momentum. Ponder how events of the Book of Mormon connect to each other (both explicitly and subtly), and reflect on how these events connect with the events of your life. So doing, you'll find that your willingness to "liken the scriptures" will bring you into a perspective above all accidents of space and time.

3. Don't speed-read: Some of you may have developed the ability to read books very quickly, and if you have, you'll know that certain books can be very exhilarating when read that way. I struggled for many years to develop my capacity for speed-reading, and when I finally achieved it, I used it on as many books as I could. I read fun books, non-fiction books, and even serious works of literature and scripture at top speeds, but I didn't realize until later that (at least with the latter two) I was missing out on a lot.

You see, I didn't realize that speed-reading is inherently opposed to a reading that understands a text's deeper meaning. In that respect, speed reading is like a motorboat skimming the surface of the water--it can go quickly, sure, but it knows nothing of what lies beneath the surface. On the contrary, the reading I have found helpful for scripture goes deep, plunging beneath the surface to find the mysteries that lie hidden in the depths of meaning.

More specifically, if you speed-read the Book of Mormon you will only discover the outward, exoteric text, while the inward, esoteric text will remain hidden (see this post for an exposition on the "internal" and "external" Books of Mormon). You'll read about wars and voyages and sermons, but if you read too quickly, those events will simply remain events, devoid of the spiritual light that shines through them when they are read thoughtfully.

Of course, you shouldn't read too slowly either--read just quickly enough that you get a sense of what's happening, but slowly enough that you let it sink in to your faculty of understanding. Doing this becomes meditative after a while (see this post for a further explanation of how reading the Book of Mormon is a form of meditation), and you'll eventually find yourself getting lost in the book--not just in the external text, but also in the internal well of emotions and connections--so that you feel at one with it.

4. Don't let anything objectionable stop you from reading it: It's unavoidable--there are parts of the Book of Mormon that will offend many people. The most obvious example of people taking offense has to do with how God cursed the Lamanites (supposedly the future Native Americans) with "a skin of blackness" for their incorrect traditions, so as to separate them from their more righteous brethren. People could also take offense at how harshly Nephi speaks of the Jews at times (though at other times, like 2 Nephi 29, he goes extra lengths to sing their praises) or at how readily God and the prophets condemn the unrighteous. These issues are a valid concern, but it's worth noting that they're only problems with certain interpretations of the text, mainly the historical one. If you interpret the text symbolically, you could interpret the curse of dark skin as an allegorical correspondence to unrighteousness itself (indeed, the parts of the text that associate white skin with purity support such a symbolic interpretation). While many people would say that one can only believe the Book of Mormon to be true historically, it's far better to read the text symbolically than to stop reading it altogether.

But as I said, one best reads the Book of Mormon by leaving interpretation out altogether. Doing this, you simply experience what the text brings before you, neither judging nor condemning it. You have faith that it has value, and even though that faith may at first appear fruitless, the time will come when it will pay off. You'll start seeing the unsavory parts of the Book of Mormon in new ways; though it may appear as something one day and as something else the next, gradually you'll find that the Book of Mormon becomes more palatable to your spiritual sensibilities. I'm not saying how this will happen--and it probably happens in a different way for each person--but the continued process of reading the book will inevitably result in your acclimatization to its unique brand of truth.

A metaphor to explain this point: God is like the sun, and all of us who orbit Him have a light side and a dark side. This is not due to any fault on our part, but simply because part of us faces Him, while part of us faces away. Now as a result of our elliptical orbits, you may see another person as any instance of a spectrum of phases--they may seem completely bright to you, meaning that you hold them as a paragon  of virtue and goodness. But on the other hand, a person may appear as nothing more than a black eclipse, meaning that they strike you as an abominable waste of humanity. In fact, this doesn't only work with people, but also with ideas, works of art, and even scripture. But what's important is this: even though something may seem like nothing but darkness, on the opposite side from the one facing you it shines with all the glory of divinity.

I believe that the process of understanding something (or someone) involves turning yourself around enough so as to see its "good side". With the objectionable parts of the Book of Mormon, that good side may very well lie hidden from your sight, but know that it is most certainly there. To see it, you have to enter into a dance with the book itself, turning your perspective around enough for you to see it for what it is: a manifestation of God's light and glory.

So essentially, keep on reading the Book of Mormon, even if it strikes you as offensive. You can take my word for it--the more you read the book, the better it gets.

5. Read it with an eye for connections: I vaguely recall someone telling me that the Book of Mormon is a keystone--the top piece of an archway that allows it to all fit together. To be honest, truer words have never been spoken. Because the Book of Mormon exists, is true, and has unique properties (which I'll discuss), reading it effectively lets you see and accept the good in all things. In that sense, the Book of Mormon's truth ensures that everything else is true, for it shows us the illuminated side of all things.

The reason this occurs has to do with the Book of Mormon's overwhelmingly inclusive nature. Not only does the book explicitly state this inclusivity (in verses like Moroni 7:12, which state that all good things come from God), but its very essence resonates with a desire to "come to terms" with everything else. While this may initially sound obscure, I will demonstrate what I mean by way of example. The Book of Mormon is intended for both the simple and the intellectual, and parts of the book exist to serve them both. And as I said before, many parts of the book lend themselves to any number of interpretations (though none completely encapsulate it). Both of these observations point to the idea that the Book of Mormon wants to be read. Whenever it was composed, the living spiritual reality that guided the pen did whatever was in its power to adapt itself to the minds of whoever would end up reading it. And this doesn't just happen in the text--the Book of Mormon will reach out to you invisibly, doing whatever it can to get you to read and understand its teachings.

In that sense, the Book of Mormon has a mission, and that mission includes reaching as many souls as possible with its saving message. However, I would hazard to say that this missionary work is only part of the book's spiritual drive. That missionary work falls under a larger umbrella, and this overarching mission is exactly what I described above: to adapt itself to, unite itself with, and come to terms with everything else. This manifests in many ways, including its desire to be heard. For in that case, it desires to shine into your mind, find what lies there, and return to itself greater than it was before. Of course I'm using metaphor (as I have been doing this entire time), and as such the Book never really travels anywhere. What I mean is that, through you and your reading of it, the Book of Mormon becomes something greater than it was before.

But it doesn't only do this with people. The Book of Mormon wants you to approach it with any number of foreign ideas, and by prayerfully reading it, the book adapts itself to those ideas and enriches your reading. So doing, the Book of Mormon gets what it wants (i.e. ever-increasing inclusivity) and you get a more intellectually and emotionally potent reading of its text. Though other books do this to an extent, nothing else I have read has rewarded me with quite as many and quite as deep of connections as has the Book of Mormon (this is generally true, although to a lesser extent, with works that come from an inspired or archetypal place--I'm thinking of other scripture, the Red Book, the Divine Comedy, and even the Little Prince. I've heard that Goethe's Faust is that way as well).

So, give the Book of Mormon what it wants! When you read it, always do it with an eye for connections, whether those connections concern other places within the text, other scripture, non-Mormon or non-Christian religious texts, philosophical texts, novels, or what have you.  By doing this you'll find that the Book of Mormon really grows into its fullness, for the Book of Mormon becomes more completely itself the more you feed it with foreign good and  truth.

6. Read as many other books as you can, both scripture and non-scripture, fiction and  non-fiction: On that note, you should be reading everything that is in your power to read. Read popular fiction, literary fiction, surreal fiction, works of philosophy, postmodernism, other religions, or even atheism. Read far and wide, from as many different authors and genres as you can, and the Book of Mormon will only become richer and dearer to you.

With the exception of pornography, you should never be afraid to read anything. It's true that many books will disagree with the Book of Mormon's tenets, but  if you reject the work on those grounds, you betray the Book of Mormon's ultimate purpose and reason to be. If you encounter books like The God Delusion or something as equally critical of your faith, your duty is just what it was for the Book of Mormon's objectionable parts--turn it around enough for you to see the part of it illuminated by divine light. With books this often involves seeing where the author is coming from; more often than not, what they write is an expression of genuine human emotions and desires, ones that you have often shared. As an example, I feel this way about Nietzsche. Nietzsche's writings express a deep respect for humanity and the things of the human world, and though he and I may differ in the way we express that respect, the fact remains that it shines through his works, ready to be discerned by the thoughtful reader.

For me, one of most unfortunate faults of modern society is its tendency to reject things based on their appearance. Many people will readily dismiss a person, a text,  or a work of art as worthless, but they should know better. For if you look hard enough, you can use anything at all as a lens through which you see divinity. What's more, reading the Book of Mormon will help you look for this good. It will instill a desire in you to seek out truth wherever it lies, and as mentioned above, it will actively compel you to bring it new ideas and stories with which to become grander. So, read as much as you can, and look for the good in everything that you read. So doing, perhaps "the great and marvelous things which have been hid up from the the foundation of the world" will be revealed to you, as they have been to many (each in their own way).

7. Never stop reading it: All the blessings I have listed in this blog post are conditioned upon one thing above all else: that you regularly read it. Without this condition, the spiritual sense in the Book of Mormon will pack up and leave, hoping that the absence of blessings will jar you into paying attention to the book again. But unfortunately, many people do not make this connection, and as such they grow to forget the sweet taste of the Spirit lying within. Do not do this, I implore you. As you read the book again and again, it won't ever get boring. More so than any other book I have read, the Book of Mormon will stay alive and renew itself for each separate reading. Why is this? Simply because of its mystery, the ambiguity that acts as living space and protection for the spiritual life lying within its pages.

So in summary, do whatever you can to preserve that mystery. Don't kill it with interpretation, but let it present itself in all its obscure fullness to you. Don't read it like a page-turner, but read it with an eye both to depth and to the meaning that transcends context. If you're offended by anything, keep reading, and you will be rewarded with a deeper understanding of the text. Moreover, let the book act as a garden from which you harvest insights and connections with other things--so doing, you'll grow to understand more of the hidden meaning underlying the text with each reading. And finally, don't let anything persuade you to stop reading it. As you do all this, you'll begin to suspect something remarkable: that what you encounter within the text of the Book of Mormon is God Himself, showing Himself to you in a way that brings you, and everything else, together in its fullness.

Letters to a Doubter: On Gender and Sexuality

Hello, everyone! Terryl Givens recently wrote an essay called "Letter to a Doubter", in which he addressed common doubts that occur to Latter-Day Saint youth about the Gospel. I thought that his piece was such a good idea that I felt compelled to write one of my own. So, in this post I will write a letter to a fictional friend of approximately same age about his doubts and worries. In the imagined letter he wrote to me first, this friend asked about the ever-present issues having to do with gender and sexuality in the Church. So in what follows, I will give my perspective on these controversial topics, ones that seem much more relevant now then ever before.

As a side note, I am very aware that I am a straight male and of all the privilege that comes with that status. In what follows I will talk about issues proper to women and LGBT individuals, but know that I don't have firsthand experience of the issues they commonly face. In the case that your experience goes against what I say here, I defer to your judgment and experience. 

***

My dear friend,

It's so good to hear from you! How long has it been since we last met? Ages, undoubtedly.... In any case, I'm both flattered and a little embarrassed that you sent me this letter. You ask some tough questions (some that I have asked many times myself), but in many ways I don't feel qualified to give you an answer. I'm not much older than you, and I suspect I don't have nearly as much knowledge about gospel questions as you think. But I will try to give you my best answers...solutions that have occurred to me when I've pondered these toughest of questions

Your first question is interesting, and I can't say it's something I haven't wondered myself: "Why does the Church distinguish between men and women in roles and responsibilities?". Here's my crack at it; tell me what you think:

While I don't deign to understand all the mysteries of God, I've done my fair share of reading with religious texts. As such, I've begun to notice a pattern. Wherever they talk about two complementary opposites, they usually will have something of the following in mind: one of the opposites is active, and has more to do with doing than with being what it is. On the other hand, the other opposite is more subsistent, and has more to do with being than doing. If I were to continue this pattern in a list of attributes, it would look like this:

• Opposite 1
• Activity
• Doing
• Categorization and distinction 
• Form 
• Contingency 
• Transcendence 
• Externality
• Opposite 2
• Existence
• Being
• Unity and reconciliation
• Substance
• Necessity
• Immanence
• Internality

Knowing all this, I'm about to say something that you could very easily take the wrong way. You see, the masculine and the feminine as symbols or archetypes correspond to Opposite 1 and Opposite 2, respectively. By that I do not mean that women can't be active or do things. Likewise, I don't mean that men can't work toward unity and reconciliation. All I intend to say is this:

The masculine and the feminine, as archetypes that manifest themselves in human bodies, are symbols of higher spiritual realities.

This will take some explaining. Many great spiritual teachers (like Swedenborg and Ibn Arabi, for instance) have taught that the physical world is nothing more than a collection of symbols that represent higher spiritual realities. You've heard of allegories, right? Like how the Chronicles of Narnia supposedly symbolize Christian teachings? Well, these teachers say that the entire world is like that--that every little thing you see is a symbolic correspondence of something that exists in the eternities. That might be a little hard to believe, but my experience has told me that they're onto something. Many coincidences in my life have been too meaningful to ascribe to mere chance, and they make it seem like my life is the plot of a story. You know about literary techniques like foreshadowing, motifs, and recurrent metaphors? Well, my life has those, and I bet yours does, too. You just need to look for them.

Along those lines, even you are a symbol. That's how I interpret the idea of the relation between my spirit and my body--my body is a symbolic image in the physical world of an existing being in the world of spirit. Now, there's nothing that stops you from being a symbol of multiple things at once--you're the image of God, aren't you? I interpret that to mean that both God and that spiritual "you" express themselves symbolically as your physical body. 

So too with the masculine and the feminine. If you know your anatomy, you'll see the principles listed above written in each sex's bodily attributes: men are usually physically stronger, and multiple male bodily functions evoke the ideas of directness and force toward the outside world. The woman's body, on the other hand, is far more internal--not only are the reproductive organs more hidden, but the woman's internal body temperature is higher than the man's (just as the man's external body temperature is higher). The idea, then, is that the masculine as an archetype manifests itself in the bodies of men, and the feminine as an archetype manifests itself in the bodies of women.

But again, you are not identical with either the masculine or the feminine--one of them just expresses itself in your body. While it is true that these archetypes can and do express themselves in our personalities, these are inconsistent and have many exceptions. The feminine, after all, can express itself just as fully in a man's mind as in the mind of a woman (and vice versa). Before you are a man or a woman, you are human, and your humanity is the most important symbol making upon your being. Because your mind is not identical with either the masculine or the feminine, there is nothing that stops you from going after your own path. Women should definitely pursue careers. Likewise, I see nothing wrong with a stay-at-home dad. Do whatever you want to do with your life, and don't let stereotypical gender roles determine your destiny.

But while you are identical with neither the masculine or the feminine, it is an unalterable fact that your body expresses one of them far more fully than the other. While this says nothing about your inner nature, it is not an accident that you are the gender that you are.  For a purpose only God can know, He gave you both your body and all the spiritual expectations that come with it. Gender, you see, is a compass. If you do what God tells you to do with respect to your gender, it will open up a window by which the light of heaven can come in and infuse your everyday life.

I speak, of course, of eternal marriage. In God's plan, men and women (regardless of sexual orientation) are expected to cleave together for eternity. And it is this that lets heaven come down to earth. Am I saying that the man and the woman need each other to be complete? Not really, though this often does happen. Instead, I mean something far more spiritual than psychological:

Eternal marriage, and the sexual union it permits, are a sacrament that symbolizes the union of Opposite 1 and Opposite 2 in the eternities.

In this respect, marriage and sex are powerful in the same respect that the sacrament is powerful--they act as symbols that represent spiritual realities and processes. But here's the key point: by approaching this ritual prayerfully, you can use it to discern the nature of eternity and the things of God. Again, you are not identical with Opposite 1 or 2 any more than the bread in the sacrament is literally Christ's flesh--your body is just a living symbol of it. But your sacred duty is to use your body to represent the mysteries of eternity, for by doing so you can find yourself in heaven while still on earth.

This observation is conceptually close to the reason why women can't be ordained to the priesthood in the Church. As far as I can tell...

The reason only men can have the authority of the priesthood is because men, as a symbol of Opposite 1, represent the active aspect of divinity. On the other hand, women represent divinity's subsistent and self-existent aspect.

In a sense, you can think of these differences as you would with ballroom dancing. While it is true that one partner in the dance leads far more than the other, it is only because of this seeming imbalance that the dance is beautiful (i.e. it is the reason that it conveys the aesthetic reality that manifests through it). And there is a beauty in the dance, don't you think? To see the masculine and the feminine so play off of and complement each other is a joy to my heart. And just like with the aforementioned dance of divinity, the fact that the woman acts receptively while dancing says nothing about who she is as a person. She might very well be an athlete or even a soldier, but she chooses to participate in the dance in order to convey beauty that cannot come any other way. Likewise, the fact that a woman doesn't have the priesthood says nothing about her inherent worth, her spiritual power, or her closeness to God.

Before I move onto your next question, let me offer a brief aside. While no one is wholly identical with the masculine or the feminine, it has become clear to me that the feminine is closer to the essence of divinity than the masculine is. It is true that the masculine is associated with the priesthood, or the "power of God"; however, the feminine is associated with something far closer to divinity than power. You see,

The feminine represents the being of God, and as such conveys divinity even more than the masculine priesthood.

I think that this is why we don't speak of the Heavenly Mother. Speaking is an action, an act of conceptualization and categorization, but the feminine in God transcends all of that. To use Wittgensteinian language, we cannot say things of the Mother--we can only show them. The feminine in the divine lies closer to divinity (and to us) than any theory, idea, or unit of speech, and it would be nothing less than idolatry to so convey it. But the Mother is very present in the Church--she shows herself through the unspoken mysteries of our faith, those that all the faithful know but cannot put into words. In that sense, she is the foundation upon which all divinity rests, for without her all action and power would be empty.

Now to your second (and last) question: "Why do you think that God sends some people to the world with same-sex attraction? Isn't that unfair?" This, my friend, is a doozie of a question. If all that I said above is true, it would seem to go against the divine plan to make people sexually desire what is inherently sinful. Some have taken this dilemma to suggest that same-sex attraction is a choice, that we all come straight, but that some of us somehow mess up and become gay. This is a cruel lie, one bred of ignorance, one that has caused far more pain than good. I declare in opposition that just as you did not choose your gender, you did not choose your orientation. But I will go further: no matter who you are or who you desire sexually, that desire was not given to you as a curse, but as a blessing. 

You may think me crazy, but let me explain myself. Sexual desire comes in two core aspects: there are the physical sensations proper to the sexual hunger, and there are the mental fantasies that stoke the fire of those sensations. Both are blessings, and both are there to teach you. Let me treat them one by one:

The physical sensations that come with sexual desire may be the most pressing and urgent drive you've ever felt. You may have fallen prey to these urges at times, finding yourself submerged beneath their rising currents. You may also have learned to forcefully subdue these feelings. As the Mormon thinker Adam S. Miller pointed out in this book Letters to a Young Mormon (link), both of these strategies will leave you lifeless. You were not given your hunger in order either to carelessly succumb to it or to mentally force it down, but to use it for higher purposes. What I'm about to describe is difficult, and may take years of practice, but the time will come when you learn to channel your hunger to something ambitious and constructive.

C. S. Lewis wrote an allegory that explains this point. He says that a man arrives at the gates of heaven with a lizard on his shoulder, one that constantly whacks his face with its tail. An angel at the gate says that he could not enter heaven with the lizard, and offers to destroy it. The man eventually accepts the offer and lets the angel use a wave of fire to kill the reptile. Though it painfully scalds the man in the process, when he looks down at the lizard's corpse, he watches it grow and transform into a magnificent stallion. He then mounts the horse and charges energetically into the wonders of heaven.

The lizard is your sexual hunger, and the horse is the courage, vitality, and energy that will come when you choose not to succumb to it. This will take a great deal of pain and discouragement, but you will eventually realize that the sexual hunger you experience is heaven's boundless energy lying dormant in you. When you bridle your hunger, you will discover more capacity than you would have ever known.

In this respect, straight people are no different from gay people. We both have an incessant sexual drive, and though it may be directed at different objects, we must both learn to master it and redirect it constructively. Thus, the energy and sensations of that hunger are a blessing for all.

But what about the fantasies that stoke the hunger? They are blessings, too, but this will take some more explaining. I own a book (link) that makes a most unusual claim, one that I'll here quote word for word:

"As a rule of thumb, it can be said that what we yearn for sexually is a symbolic representation of what we need in order to become whole."

This is a principle that, though I was initially skeptical, has proven true again and again. In the most normal kinds of sexuality, the man's desire for the woman is a sign that he needs to incorporate the feminine into his mind, as is true with women and the masculine. But it is more comprehensive than this.

The book I just quoted from gives the interesting example of a man that could only make love to a woman by first kissing her feet. He naturally thought that he was perverted in some way, but when he went to a therapist he eventually discovered that he looked down on women as if he were superior to them. The act of kissing the woman's feet was his mind's way of letting him know that he needed to treat women with more value, for it caused him to act subserviently to a woman, almost as if he were worshiping her.

There are other examples of this principle: one woman who had rape fantasies realized that she was too controlling, and a man who fantasized about becoming a woman realized that he was not using his potential for empathy as fully as he could have. You can imagine many more examples, I'm sure.

But the key point here is that your fantasies tell you where you need to go. By harnessing that strongest of all energies, they forcefully point us in the right direction, even if we can't understand it at the time.

By all means, this should work for gay people, too. Though it would be a gross oversimplification to say that all gay people have their desires for the same reason, in each case it seems true that their desires and fantasies should point them symbolically where they need to go. I don't know what these directions are, by any means.  But I have seen to much to suppose that our innate sexualities are accidents.

However, I'm not saying that gay people should give into their sexual desires in a physical way. That goes against the principles of the sexual sacrament I mentioned above, for sex should primarily be a symbolic conveyance of complementary spiritual realities. What I am saying is that you should pay close attention to your fantasies and heed where they symbolically point you.

You see, nothing in our sexuality should be regarded as perverted or evil. While we aren't permitted to physically embody all of our fantasies, they can all teach you about your mind, your soul, and your life. Likewise, the sensations and energy of sexual hunger can give your purpose, energy, and resolve where other things wouldn't have. So don't feel like you need a sexual outlet in order to be happy--many people before you have gotten along very happily without one. 

But in any case, don't feel like your sexuality is a curse. It is a blessing, whatever it is. You just need faith that it will bear fruit (a lack of chastity is, after all, a sexual lack of faith). Have faith that, if you cleave unto God and His gospel, he will lead you to His kingdom, a place where all the deficiencies that contribute to your hunger will be filled, so that you will be whole.

That's that, then. You may not like my answers, but they are from my heart, and I intend them to help whoever reads them. 

Take care,

Christian

Finding Myself in Another (My Thoughts on Ordain Women)

Hello, everyone! In light of recent events concerning the Church in the news, I feel obligated to tell you all how I feel about the issues they bring up. More specifically, I feel suddenly inspired to give you my take on the halo of controversy surrounding how the Church has reacted to the "Ordain Women" organization.

First, let me say that the initial news of the excommunication threats brought sadness to my heart. Regardless of how I felt about the group's policies, I have never thought it a happy thing to see someone's efforts and passions be reduced to naught. Moreover, it seems likely that these events will cause many people's testimonies to waver, and that is never a good thing in my book. So know that, even though I don't sympathize with the views of Ordain Women, it was a very sad day for me.

That said, I get the feeling that the intellectual foundation upon which Ordain Women stands is a fallacious one. In fact, their premises seem to rest on only a single tenet: that if I am to get what another has, it must be given to me apart from him or her. But this is a lie. In fact, this lie is so destructive, so pernicious, and so evil that it has caused me more pain and sorrow than any other belief I have held. You see, I have a high-functioning form of autism called Asperger's Syndrome. Because of this diagnosis, there are things that will always be harder for me than for neurotypical people: I will likely always find it hard to "be at ease" in social situations, and I fear I will never enjoy the pleasure of playful flirtation that I see come so easily to others. But it isn't just Asperger's--other, more private things have caused me to feel great pain when I see other people who lack my struggles.

But in all this I was missing something. In all the sorrow over my limitations, I never stopped to consider that a life-changing idea was hidden just below the surface. And this idea, which I have come to realize only slowly, is this:

My life was never about me in the first place. Of myself, I am fundamentally limited; it is only in other people, and in God, that I will find myself.

This is the key to everything. Without it, we exist separately and singly for all eternity, never being able to share an intimacy that is more than skin-deep. If this were not true, the being and love others have would forever be locked away from sight, and I would never be able to venture beyond the boundaries of my body and my spirit. But it is true. If I love another person I can find myself within her, and if I look hard enough, I can find her within me. 

The knowledge of this mystery seems to be sorely lacking in what I have encountered of the Ordain Women movement. For they believe that women can only get what men have by getting it apart from men, that we must receive for ourselves the same gifts as anyone else in order to enjoy them for ourselves. But this, as I said, is a lie. If I am not a practiced piano player, must I learn to be a maestro in order to enjoy the instrument being played? What if I don't play soccer--does that man I can't watch the World Cup? The logic of Ordain Women rests upon the idea that I must have something for myself in order to enjoy it. But in truth, I can enjoy others' gifts as much as they do, if not more.

The way I see it, God gave us differences not so that we can protest them and demand that they be taken away, but so that we can learn to depend on, love, and find ourselves within each other. If we were all the same, our ubiquitous self-sufficiency would cause us to ignore each other and only seek out what is for our own good. The bland homogeneity of such a world easily disgusts the imagination, for surely no one would want a world where everyone was exactly the same. But we are different from each other--some are short, some are tall; some are abstract, some are concrete; some are men, some are women. And how much better we are for it! What good does it do to flee from the world of difference? Such a world is colorful and multifaceted, and it seems that the only reason someone would move away from it is because they think that others' gifts do not belong to him or her. But that, again, is a lie.

You may protest me at this point. "Wait!", you might say, "how is it possible for someone to have what belongs to another? I guess it's a nice sentiment, but surely it doesn't reflect the facts!" In fact, it does. It's true that I can't literally enter into someone's mind and see their thoughts, but that state of affairs is but a poor image of what's really possible. Didn't you know that your life is like an iceberg? You see your body, your mind, and your thoughts, but that's only the ten percent that peek above the water. Beneath the surface of what you can see with your eyes, you are more glorious than than even the vastness of the cosmos. The stars and swirling galaxies only shine dimly in comparison to the blazing light that emanates from within you. In the luminous depths within us it is not only we who shine, but others as well--for in this interior vastness we all see each other as we are.

A very wise fox once said that "it is only with the heart that one sees rightly" and truer words have never been uttered since. With your eyes you can see a little ways both into space and into minds, but you can never use them to reach the heights attainable by the heart. For it is love (along with faith and hope) that allows you to see how things truly are. With love, you begin to see the secret reality that precedes everything visible; you learn the secret that all things contain all things, that nothing exists that isn't a window to the entirety of being.

You may see this with your scriptures--how the more you dwell on a verse's meaning, the more the wisdom of God pours out through it. You may also have seen this in your relationships with others--how you can feel suddenly at home with another person, even though you consciously know nothing of what goes on in his or her head. This secret also comes in how something can suddenly remind you of someone dear, perhaps one that has died. For these situations are not mere tricks of memory--the reminder is really a window for you to share love with someone across the boundaries of life and death.

Knowing this, that we are secret neighbors of all that is, what reason have you to despair over not having what belongs to the other person? Sure, you may not have the priesthood in this life, but you have the potential to live many lives. Though you may not see it with your earthly eyes, the depths of your spirit can live the life of another just as well as your own. All that you lack in this respect is a clear vision of what you feel, but that too will be remedied once you pass on from this side of the veil.

I have felt the state I just described, and so this post has turned into my way of expressing what I thought was inexpressible. But there is more to be said. For I have wondered: if we are truly connected to all that is, why is there this appearance of separateness and discord? I meditated on this subject, and the answer came to me in an image: this life, I realized, is a dance. We had always existed in the brightness of eternity, but one day it occurred to us to dim the lights a little so that we could put on a show. We divided ourselves from each other, preparing to take different parts in this elegantly choreographed piece that is the world. Sure, we may have different roles to play--men may have one part and the women another--but none of that is limiting. On the contrary, it is just this limitation that is so joyful for infinity. For the finite and the limited are but a brief interlude in the eternal round of heaven--one that began, one that will end, and one that lets infinity shine through it. But it not a sad thing. On the contrary, it is the very joy of heaven to interrupt its boundless infinity with the constraints of finitude (finitude, after all, is the only thing that infinity lacks). For we are creating a masterpiece for the glory of God, and the fact that we do not now discern its movements does not stop His light shining from within every part of it.

Life Outside of Time and Space

Of all the ideas I've gleaned from the writings of Emanuel Swedenborg, none have struck me as deeply as his teachings about time and space. He taught that time and location do not work the same way in the spiritual world as they do here--instead of existing as the end-all, be-all of our existence, there they only function as an "appearance" of something deeper. This specifically means that spiritual time and place only appear as something that corresponds to someone's internal state. Or more simply--the more two people are internally similar, the closer they draw to each other in spiritual time and place. Two angels with a similar state of mind would therefore be closer to each other than two angels with discordant internal states, meaning that in the spiritual world we are grouped into communities according to how similar we are to each other (heaven and hell being the two largest such groups).

But there is a deep philosophical principle underlying these concepts, for by presenting the above ideas Swedenborg paints a picture of two possible relationships between place and state. While I established that the spiritual world favors the latter more than the former, in the physical world it is exactly the opposite--we are often never in the place or time that our seems to fit how we are inside. How often, after all, do we have to leave a vacation before we're ready? What about the annoyance of long-distance relationships and the necessary travel for them to work? Both situations are examples of how physical time and space are more fundamental here than how we are inside, and they both  illustrate how this world can make us feel "out of place".

As a matter of fact, one of the biggest arguments you could give for the existence of a spiritual world is that the physical world so often frustrates our desires. If we are just physical beings (as many people claim), why do the limitations of physicality frustrate us as much as they do? If physical evolution were the only force acting in our makeup, then it would seem far more biologically convenient for us not to get upset over, say, the death of a family member. But in reality, the reason we get upset over death is because it interrupts our timeless experience of love with the limitations of a finite lifespan. Thus, any anxiety we feel from endings in this life (whether spatial or temporal) is evidence that we are not made to fit a world that contains them (reference a very similar argument in President Uchtdorf's talk Grateful in Any Circumstances).

(As a side note, another argument you could give for the existence of Swedenborg's spiritual world is the existence of the Internet. For though he lived in a time where mail was the fastest form of communication, his description of the spiritual world featured things like a) the instantaneous communication of ideas with anyone else, b) the sharing of thoughts and knowledge with the totality of heaven, and c) the organization of people into communities based on what their members love. Each of these descriptions reflects our everyday experience of the Web, for the Internet is really a world whose geography is rooted in mental states. But this is precisely what you would expect of displaced spiritual beings given limitless technological power--to inadvertently recreate their native country within the foreign world of space and time.)

But there is a sense in which we can be free of the constraints of time and space even in this world. You see, both place/time and state are a part of our experience of the world, and we can choose which one we want to focus on more than the other. To focus on time and space at the expense of state is to fall under the constraint of sequence. By foregroundong places and events instead of emotions, we find ourselves restlessly seeking after whatever situation we think will make us happy. Whether it's the promise of a new possession or a new relationship, or whether it involves the end of something that we hate about our present situation, time and space entices us with the mirage of the "not yet". We seek after anything and everything that will lead us from our seemingly miserable circumstances, never stopping to consider that something new has never made anyone lastingly happy.

If we wish to become happy, it will not happen by a change in the physical world. When we foreground state, we accept whatever is given to us by the happenstance of time and space as only secondary in importance to the demands of one's internal state of being. The Mormon theologian Adam S. Miller expresses a very similar idea when he says:

"The givenness of life (and with it, the grace of Christ's atonement) appears to the degree that the present moment is received as unconditionally imposed without regard to how  one arrived there or where one is going. The atonement, as what gives life, is what calls us back to the living grace of the present moment."

We are here--we have never been and will never be anywhere else. As such, we will never find happiness there, for "there" only exists in the world of time and space. Peace will only come when we embrace our current state--if we seek after change (even spiritual change) in space and time, we will only end up on a wild goose chase. If we are going to really change, it will only come in what Miller calls the "everlasting fire of the present moment", or rather, independent of space and time.

When we are free of the constraint of sequence, we can truly have a taste of what life is like beyond the veil. Eternal life, not as everlasting time but as the kind of life that God lives, occurs when we disentangle ourselves from the bonds of attachment to the past and the future and, instead, see the eternal world of state beyond the world of place and time.

Notes on Fiction, Possibility, Love, and Truth

For the past several months, I've been keeping a philosophical journal on my computer. In it, I reflect on intellectual problems that have been troubling me and, through that reflection, try to find a solution to them. However, though many great insights come out of that process, I end up forgetting about them as the months go by. In fact, it was just today that I decided to revisit some of my old entries, and I couldn't have been more surprised--they were full to the brim with tremendous connections and probing insights. I eventually came to the conclusion that these connections were too powerful to keep to myself, and so I made this post as a combination of some of my favorites.

What follows is written aphoristically (like two other posts on this blog, the most recent being my worldview). I acknowledge that this post may be hard to understand--not due of my language but because of the abstractness of my ideas. However, I echo Wittgenstein when I say that this post will have acheived its purpose if there is one person to whom it offers insight, pleasure, or peace.

1. What is fiction, really? It is unreal, but it lets the light of reality shine through in a curious way.
2. What is this way? How does fiction refract the light of being?
3. Fiction displays unmanifest possibilities--this much is unambiguous
4. Unmanifest possibilities are always striving toward the light of actuality. They want to be real.
5. The world is pregnant, always giving birth to possibilities.
6. Fiction creates a fact [i.e. a grouping of possibilities in our perception]; it sees in connection those things that appear separate.
7. Fiction imposes itself upon the world. From the moment they take on a ghostly form in our imagination, fictions will creep in until they are supplanted.
8. Connection is akin to copulation. It results in the reproduction of these possibilities together to create a synthesis.
9. The poles of the connection strive toward each other. They lust for each other.
10. Consciousness is the only place where they can satisfy their lust. We are the meeting ground of possibility.
11. We are the boundary between actuality and possibility. 
12. If we take possibility and fiction to be the same thing, then because all actions are possible before they are actual, all reality comes from fiction.
13. This, perhaps, is the meaning of the doctrine of pre-existence.
14. What evidence is there for the existence of possibility? Could there not just be an actual world, after all?
15. The metaphysics of possibility is merely a way of saying that there are different "here"s. In order for a possibility to become actual, two "here"s must connect.
16. When Swedenborg says that truth "clothes" love, he means that every "here" becomes manifest as a "there". "Here"s reveal themselves as "there"s through truths [i.e. a perceived state of affairs; a fact].
17. Every truth conceals a disguised "here". Thus, truth is a means of connection.
18. In other words, truth is the means of love, for love and connection are the same thing (as in Swedenborg).
19. Love seeks to separate itself from itself (through truths) so that it can connect with itself in actuality.
20. Truth distinguishes a set of loves from itself. Without sufficient truth, we perceive only a single mass.
21. Truth reveals "there"s, and through them, "here"s
22. Truth separates seemingly identical "here"s  and allows us to see and connect with them as "there"s.
23. In other words, truth lets us grow in distinctness.
24. Swedenborg says that usefulness [his term for "action" as a metaphysical phenomenon] combines love and wisdom together, but what does this mean?
25. If I am right, usefulness connects things that are already distinct.
26. Usefulness is the act of participating in a fact as if it were you.
27. Reading a book, bearing a testimony, being in a relationship with another person, etc. are all ways of behaving as if the corresponding states of affairs were part of your identity or being.
28. When we believe in a truth, we let the corresponding love become manifest--we are a midwife to it.
29. This is why faith is the root of all action: all actions come through beliefs. But they do not originate there.
30. Actions originate in loves.
31. Everything is ultimately a form of love. Love strives toward reality through truths.
32. Love is possibility and connection as it exists in itself.
33. Fiction is merely the attempt of various loves to strive toward the light of usefulness.
34. When we have faith in the reality of something, we let the corresponding love use us to bring it about.
35. Love (i.e. connection and possibility) seeks out truths (or perceived "there"s) in order to connect to itself more fully. It wishes to become embodied in distinct multiplicity so that it can become more substantial in its connection. In other words, it wishes to become embodied.
36. Reality is moving through ever-increasing degrees of connection and embodied possibility. The evolution of mankind's consciousness was such a huge step, as was writing, the printed book, and (most recently) the Internet. 
37. As Pierre Teilhard de Chardin alludes to with his concept of the Omega Point, unmanifest possibility and connection are working toward their biggest breakthrough yet: what we call the Second Coming.
38. This ultimate incarnation of possibility and connection will let us see past the boundaries of past and future. It will join the living and the dead as one body. It will reveal everything that ever was, is, will be, or might have been as a single, intricately connected whole (see D&C 84:100-101 and 130:6-9 for scriptural support of these ideas).
39. This does not mean that time will end. Time will continue, but we will see all of its moments pervading each other.
40. Though the Second Coming will happen collectively, I see no reason why an individual can't experience this breakthrough of possibility on his or her own (this is perhaps what we mean by those who are taken up into Heaven without dying).
41.  We can experience this now, even if only in miniature. All we have to do is practice faith, hope, and charity. These three virtues let us perceive unmanifest possibilities and bring them into our experience of the world (reference Moroni 7:25's declaration that we can lay hold upon every good thing through faith).
42. By having faith in the unknown, trusting in the future, and doing good to those whose minds are hidden from us, we can issue forth into our world connections and possibilities that would remain hidden otherwise.
43. By acting as if reality's unknown parts were a part of our world, we make that belief true. This is what faith, hope, and charity have in common--they stretch our souls beyond where we can now see.

Why I am both Nothing and Everything

I've always been very upset that there is separateness in the world. I thought, "Why is it that one person gets one experience, but I get another? Why can't I experience it all, even the things that my individuality, my species, and my gender preclude from me?" I thought it was extremely unjust that I was separate from other people at all; I wanted a chance to be anyone and everyone.

Naturally, this perspective doesn't mesh with the world very well. I'm stuck with my body and its limitations for the rest of my life--I simply can't peer into someone else's mind or trade identities with another person. As I put in another post, I am doomed to forever wander the corridors of my mind alone.

And yet, that last assertion isn't quite true. It certainly is true that I can't see the the mind of another person perfectly, but, in truth, neither can they. You see, people assume that we know ourselves completely, that we are an expert on what goes on in our heads. But that's simply not the case. How many times have you forgotten something, only to remember it again sometime in the future? Was that information gone? No; it was a part of your mind, but you just didn't realize it.

That goes for many things: do you consciously know how to beat your heart? Do you have any deliberate notions of how the mechanics of your muscles work? What about dreams? That's a part of you, but they can surprise you as much as anything in the external world. The same is true for any sudden intrusion into the mind, whether it be a fleeting thought or a sudden mood. 

It's true that, at least in one sense, I'm a stranger in the world. But it is also true that, in the same sense, I'm a stranger in my own head. I might not know what's going on in another's mind; however, it can sometimes take great effort to know what's going on in my mind! When I realized this, I suddenly began to see that I'm only as separate from other people as I am from myself. Or rather, I began to realize that what I had thought of as "my self" didn't really exist at all.

When most people use the word "self" in a philosophical context, they tend to mean something that belongs to you. Even I thought this, though I didn't realize it. Though I may have professed to believing that the self was an immaterial light of consciousness, I actually thought of it as identical with the contents of my consciousness (i.e. my thoughts, sensations, and emotions). But that is a mistake.

If you, like I did, define your self as the impersonal witness of the contents of your consciousness, that's fine. However, as soon as you start identifying yourself with any of these contents, you immediately open up the door to misery and anxiety. To see this, let's say you get a disfiguring illness they leaves your body looking hideous. If you identify yourself with that body, then you are hideous. If you identify yourself with your thoughts and have an evil thought, then suddenly you are evil. Moreover, if you identify yourself with your sensations (as have many philosophers) and you suffer endless, miserable pain, then you become that endless, miserable pain.

I repeat the meditative recitation of many Dharmic practitioners: I am not my body, I am not my mind, I am not my feelings, I am not my thoughts. Identification with these things only brings misery--anxiety over maintaining them, and despair over being limited to them.

But there is an even deeper layer here. To express it, let's turn to a quotation from Ludwig Wittgenstein's notebooks:

"As I can infer my spirit from my physiognomy, so I can infer the spirit of each thing from its physiognomy. [...] Only remember that the spirit of the snake, of the lion, is your spirit. For it is only from yourself that you are acquainted with spirit at all."

I am separate from myself--I know my character by observing how I act in certain situations and learning about the way I think, feel, and behave. Exactly the same is true of how I know anyone else. I learn about my behavior; I learn about their behavior. I see myself getting angry; I see another person getting angry. There is no essential difference here.

In one sense, I am nothing--I can't point to anything in the world and undeniably say "that's me". For precisely the same reasons, I am able to say to anything that "I'm just as much you as I am anything else!" Nothing in the world belongs to me; I am its transcendental witness, its Wittgensteinian limit. But because I have shrunk myself to a mere nothing, other people and their emotions belong to me just as much as the stuff going on in my head. There is no essential boundary--only a single continuum that includes me, you, and everything else.

One of my favorite songs has a lyric that I profoundly resonate with: "I can be anything that I see" (link). And it's true. I am not just Christian Swenson. In the same way that I am him, I am also my friends, my family, my neighbors, and my pets. I am man, woman, girl, and boy. I am the stars and the ocean and the mountains. But so are you! And in the end, that's the greatest news I could have asked for: that we are each other, and that together we share the totality of our being, our world, and our selves.

That's that. You may have found this post odd or unnecessary--indeed, this seems to be a complicated way of solving an unbelievably simple problem (like Adam S. Miller's Rube Goldberg Machines). But it has brought my peace, and I post it here that it might do the same for one of you.

Reflections on Gratitude

As usual, my favorite talk from the last session of General Conference was one by President Uchtdorf, specifically the one entitled "Grateful in Any Circumstances". In it, Uchtdorf displays his usual aplomb in discussing spiritually deep subjects, for though he never says things that are hard to understand, he is not afraid to venture into the esoteric (or even the mystical) to get his point across. This particular talk discusses the healing power of gratitude--that one can find solace in any situation by being grateful. 

To give an example of the talk's pure inspirational power, take this quotation:

"We can choose to be grateful, no matter what. This type of gratitude transcends whatever is happening around us. It surpasses disappointment, discouragement, and despair. It blooms just as beautifully in the icy landscape of winter as it does in the pleasant warmth of summer. When we are grateful to God in our circumstances, we can experience gentle peace in the midst of tribulation. In grief, we can still lift up our hearts in praise. In pain, we can glory in Christ’s Atonement. In the cold of bitter sorrow, we can experience the closeness and warmth of heaven’s embrace."

President Uchtdorf presents gratefulness as an attitude that can buoy you up in any situation, no matter how hopeless or desperate. If you exercise gratitude, you can infuse suffering with peace and replace despair with hope. If you are grateful, Uchtdorf says that you can see God's love even in the midst of maelstroms and flights of arrows.

However, Uchtdorf never explains exactly what one who is grateful in her circumstances should be grateful for. If, as he says, our gratitude should not depend on any outward circumstances, what exactly makes it qualify as...well...gratitude? Uchtdorf never answers this question, but I think I have found an answer in another place: in the book Rube Goldberg Machines: Essays in Mormon Theology, by Adam S. Miller.

Miller explains:

"To be catalyzed by the atonement: to see and enter the kingdom of God as it is manifest in the grace of whatever is given in the present moment. / The gospel: a promise that joy does not depend on what is given but on its givenness."

Miller sees all life as a process of giving and receiving. In several of the aforementioned book's essays, he explains that it is incorrect to view a person as a simple, discrete whole. You borrow your life from other people and things--whether you take oxygen from the atmosphere, knowledge from a book, a facial feature from a parent, or a mannerism from a friend you spend time with. It follows from this observation that your life comes totally and unconditionally from elsewhere, and thus that you receive your entire life as a gift.

However, you can receive this gift in two different ways. One the one hand, you can focus on the content of the gift--becoming happy when the gift is good, but being depressed when the gift is sub-par. But you can also choose to focus on the gift's givenness, or rather on the fact that it is given.

I think that this is the essence of President Uchtdorf's teachings on gratitude. Instead of letting your happiness depend on the contingencies of everyday cause and effect, you should instead rejoice that you are given this awkward, messy, incomplete thing called life at all. Instead of bemoaning the short-end-of-the-deal you perceive your life to be, be joyous that you do indeed have a gift! The quality of your life doesn't matter in this respect; to quote Wittgenstein, "Not how the world is, is the mystical, but that it is" (Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 6.44). Heavenly joy doesn't come contingently; it shines upon all circumstances, and you receive it to the extent that you see the events of your life as the grace of God.

But what about sin? What about those people who, despite their best efforts, remain entrenched in sinful behavior? Should someone with an addiction be grateful? How can that person see the grace of God in what she was given?

In answer, the weakness you might show in trying to follow the commandments lets you know that something's wrong with your mental "insides". Without those outward manifestations, the selfishness or pride inside you would hide itself away from both your eyes and those of others. As Swedenborg has said many times, the Lord's divine providence makes sure that evils become expressed, because if they weren't expressed, they could never be removed. So, be grateful for your weaknesses! If you sometimes fall prey to sin, know that each time you repent from it you draw closer to God than you were before. Sin, at least as outwardly-manifest behavior, is thus a great blessing to those who repent (even if it's again and again)--it teaches you to be humble and patient, and to always rely on the atonement.

If we remember Christ, everything that happens to us (even our sins!) is for our benefit. Knowing this, we can truly feel "encircled about eternally in the arms of [God's] love" (2 Nephi 1:15). And what better reason can there be to be grateful? He will care for us no matter what comes, and when we receive whatever is given to us as the grace of this love, we will find peace in our fitfully ascending path to the light.