Bigger on the Inside: The Mystical in Doctor Who

My name is Christian Swenson, and I am a Whovian. This claim--that I am a member of a fandom celebrating the 52-year-old television show called Doctor Who--is not something I'm at all ashamed to admit here. I have watched Doctor Who for just about as long as I've maintained this blog, so I'm actually much more ashamed to say that in those 5 1/2 years, I haven't touched on the show here at all. I intend to change that.

Doctor Who tells the story of an alien simply named "The Doctor," who travels through time and space in his spaceship/time machine called the Tardis, which, though outwardly a 1960s British Police telephone box, is inwardly vaster than you can imagine. He is a member of an alien race called the Time Lords and understands himself to be its sole remaining member for much of the recent series. When he gets close to dying, his body undergoes a process called "regeneration," by which it renews itself into the form of a completely new person with a completely new personality, though his underlying identity and memories remain the same. On his voyages throughout the cosmos, he does his utmost to preserve peace, freedom, and well-being among the many denizens of the universe, and in doing so he becomes something of a savior figure.

Though you may find my religious verbiage there a bit surprising, know that I'm just getting started. As a matter of fact, Doctor Who is chock-full of spiritual and mystical themes, and though many might imagine it to be a bastion of secularism, I know better. Despite what the show's creators may have intended (Douglas Adams being among them at one point), the archetypes of spirituality have "shone through the cracks" of the show, to the point where Doctor Who is a veritable religious mythos all of its own.

This is far from shallow philosophizing. I went to a panel at a local Comic-Con-esque convention last January with some stars from Doctor Who, and I was surprised to see how many fans got up to say that the show had actually changed their lives. With an emotional passion surprising for a mere "television show," they got up to say that the values, stories, and themes from Doctor Who had given them a framework by which to guide and govern their own lives. They also said that the show had given them comfort when life was at its bleakest, and one young woman actually said that it had "saved her life."

Does that sound like just another sci-fi show, a potentially trivial waste of time? Is Doctor Who just an entertaining way to spend an hour of television programming, or is it something more? I think it is. During the time when the Doctor graces our screens, I believe they are actually bigger on the inside--televisions become Tardises. And that is the Doctor's magic: he knows the secret of the Time Lords' craft, and he understands better than anyone alive that anything at all can be inwardly vaster than it appears. When the Doctor shows us this understanding, our hearts swell (and double), and we too become Tardises. It is no accident that when the Doctor's Tardis became temporarily incarnate in a human body, she explained how surprised she was that people were all "so much bigger on the inside!"

The Doctor sees the inner immensity of all things--when he notices the beauty in a gigantic insect or some other apparently disgusting monster, he is just remembering that his time machine is hardly what it appears to be from the outside. When an old, embittered man says that a woman is "nobody important" and the Doctor cheekily remarks "you know, in 900 years of time and space, I've never met somebody who wasn't important before," he is again repeating that secret Time Lord way of seeing the universe, where nothing is insignificant, because they are all inwardly vast.

Could it be that when these young fans tearfully thank a Matt Smith or a Billie Piper for Doctor Who's saving power, they are expressing gratitude for the Doctor's revelation that they are more than mere lumps of expendable flesh, that they too are bigger on the inside? And not just them--with a mere flick of the Doctor's sonic screwdriver, everything becomes a TARDIS: my friend, my lover, my book, that tree, a memory, or a thought all reveal themselves as a hidden world, one that opens up to the entirety of space and time.

How many of us haven't seen "a world in a grain of sand and heaven in a wild flower?" Surely everyone knows the thrill of looking deeply into something or someone, and then seeing them open up to the vastness of eternity. When this "opening" happens, the police box is merely swinging ajar its doors--Blake's "grain of sand" is a Tardis, and through it you can visit anything and everything in creation.

And who says Tardises can't have more Tardises within them--depth within depth, worlds within worlds? Suddenly I am reminded of a passage from C. S. Lewis's last entry in the Chronicles of Narnia, The Last Battle, in which all the Narnians we knew and loved passed from "the Shadowlands" to a more "internal," yet much vaster and richer Narnia. Speaking with her friend Mr. Tumnus from a garden at the top of a hill, the girl-turned-young-woman Lucy Pevensie says:

"'I see,' she said at last, thoughtfully. 'I see now. This garden is like the Stable. It is far bigger inside than it was outside.' 'Of course, Daughter of Eve,' said the Faun. 'The further up and the further in you go, the bigger everything gets. The inside is larger than the outside."Lucy looked hard at the garden and saw that it was not really a garden at all, but a whole world, with its own rivers and woods and sea and mountains. but they were not strange: she knew them all.'I see,' she said. 'This is still Narnia, and more real and more beautiful than the Narnia down below, just as it was more real and more beautiful than the Narnia outside the Stable door! I see...world within world, Narnia within Narnia...''Yes,' said Mr. Tumnus, 'like an onion: except that as you go in and in, each circle is larger than the last.'"

When I open the doors to the Tardises in my friend or my 'companion," I can go forever "further up and further in" to him or her. An angry facial expression can become an intimation of volcanoes or an ancient battle, and a kind word can awaken the long dead or open up Forrest Gump's box of chocolates. Anything can suggest anything; like unto like, forever and ever (see this post for a more lengthy and rigorous discussion of this topic).

And of course, let's not forget the Doctor himself! He comes from another world, irrupting into this one like a flash of lightning in "an oncoming storm." Yes, he looks human, but he isn't; he is a being of fire and light hidden in human flesh, which fire breaks forth to issue him forth from one way of being to another. We can never speak his name, for surely it would burn our tongues if we tried. He goes from here to there and there to here without effort. He is simultaneously boyish and unspeakably old; he is a door between worlds.

What does all this mean? The Doctor always comes in the nick of time, but that is, of course, because he is himself a "nick" in time! He is a tiny hole in the established way of things, one by which the "everlasting burnings" of  eternity can break through and transform us. For he not only regenerates himself--he regenerates the world. That's his job--to transmute the world into gold, to heal us of our ills, to save us all from our own monsters.

I know of many Doctors in the world--Christ, of course, but also anyone who seems not to jibe with the times, but whose foolishness changes the world for good. My favorite is actually Joseph Smith--like Lucy Pevensie discovering a world in a backroom wardrobe, or Amy Pond finding a Tardis in her backyard, Joseph Smith had the privilege and great responsibility of discovering a window to eternity in the backwoods of his hometown. What is this Tardis, you might ask? Well, it's pretty easy to find: The Book of Mormon is also square, blue, and bigger on the inside!

What an odd synchronicity! And I don't think it's accidental--blue is the color of depth, of great distance incarnate in the small and near at hand. The Book of Mormon and the Tardis both come to us "out of the blue," as they are windows onto the "great blue yonder" of eternity, the great expanse of the firmament that links earth and heaven. Heaven on earth; eternity in time; the bigger inside in the smaller outside. Who knows--maybe the Doctor is hidden somewhere in that blue box of a book!

So let us remember the Doctor's secret. As we go throughout our days, let us put on his "brainy-specs" or his eccentric 3D glasses, so that we may see the depth in things.  Don't be afraid to stand up for the tiny--as a Whovian, you should know better than anyone that it is inwardly huge (blessed are the tiny, for they are bigger on the inside!). And finally, see what's hidden in plain sight; look past perception filters; don't blink. If you look carefully, attentively, with the care of a Doctor, you'll find more than just the outside of things--you'll find a Tardis.

My Upcoming Experiment

Hello, all! Ever since about a year ago, I've had a secret ambition. As you know if you read my blog, the great eighteenth-century visionary Emanuel Swedenborg taught that the Bible is deeply symbolic, and that one could follow even the tiniest details back to a spiritual reality it symbolized. He published lengthy works explaining these interpretations (what he called "correspondences"), but I've thought: why hasn't anyone tried to do this with the Book of Mormon? If I'm to stick to my beliefs that both Joseph Smith's and Swedenborg's claims are true, then the Book of Mormon would have to fall into Swedenborg's system of symbolic interpretation. So, I've decided to test that idea, with the hypothesis that the Book of Mormon will reveal deeper and more profound truths if I interpret it with Swedenborg's hermeneutic lens.

Invaluable in this project will be the book Dictionary of Correspondences: The Key to Biblical Interpretation, published as a reference guide to all the symbolic relationships explained in Swedenborg's large corpus.

I expect this project to take up a medium-to-large amount of posts, and I'll probably make a post exploring the symbolic meanings of each book in the Book of Mormon (I'll probably squish Enos, Omni, Jarom, and the Words of Mormon together, along with similar things for other very short books). So, expect this project to be a major presence on my blog in the coming weeks and months.

A few caveats before I finish here: first, asserting the Book of Mormon's symbolic meaning doesn't rule out its literal meaning. According to Swedenborgian theology, every piece of scripture has at least three distinct meanings: its celestial meaning (corresponding to the Celestial Kingdom of heaven, a term familiar to any Latter-Day Saint), its spiritual meaning, and its literal meaning. The celestial and spiritual meanings exist in the literal meaning like a spirit in a body, and so it's important to remember that these deeper levels of meaning in scripture are vitally connected to the literal meaning. In fact, you might say that they need each other.

Also, please be wary of getting too attached to this interpretation. As I mentioned in my post Tips on Reading the Book of Mormon Effectively, any interpretation of the Book of Mormon will hinder your testimony if you grasp it too tightly, and this one is no exception. While it might potentially open new vistas of spiritual understanding, any way of understanding truth can get in the way of that truth if it becomes too "opaque," too complete in itself. So keep that in mind.

Also, if you're curious about Swedenborg's interpretation of the Bible, check out my post A Swedenborgian Testimony of the Book of Mormon, in which I compare it to the Book of Mormon's interpretation of its own symbols (in the context of Lehi's dream), and find them to be eerily similar.

So, fun times ahead! I'm excited to hear what you all think.

Like Unto Like

In my last post I talked about (among other topics) that there is a kind of space "between" all things. I pointed out that two things can only conceivably interact with each other if they have something in common between them, if they are in some way the same. The matrix that acts as the commonality between all things--the ground for all interaction between people, objects, and ideas that are separate--is this "between space," what I before called "The Island" in an homage to Lost.

However, there is more to be said on this topic. For instance, I think it's important to talk about exactly why it is that two things need a common medium or "matrix" in order for them to come into relation with each other at all. The key to this question lies in a simple observation: that in order for me to know about another thing at all (let alone interact with it in a concrete way), some evidence of that thing must present itself to me. This evidence means that I and that thing have at least "crossed paths," for the very fact that I am aware of it means that we both exist in a realm of being in which I can at least encounter the "traces" of that other thing. If I and that thing didn't have a common "space," I would not be able to conceive of this object, let alone know about it or interact with it.

At a very fundamental level, things like "space" and "time" are examples of the kind of matrix in which I can be situated together with an object. In other words, I share in common with essentially anything or anyone I have encountered the facts that we a) exist in space, and b) exist in time. This commonality I have with things makes it possible for me to encounter and perceive them--it is precisely because I share "space" and "time" in common with these things that we can come into awareness of each other at all.

But notice something here: you never see space and time. Though you may see objects that occupy a space and occur at a time, I can only infer the actual existence of space and time from these objects, and never from direct perception. But of course this makes sense--because I can only come to perceive things in space and time, I can never perceive space and time themselves. This is much like you never actually see light--you only ever see objects illuminated by light. Like light, space and time are the means by which I see--and thus they are "too close" for me to discern by themselves.

But if it is true that space and time--two qualities I have in common with all things in the universe--are examples of media through which I see other things, is it true for other commonalities? For instance, is it true for colors or shapes or tones? I would say that it is. In other words, I never actually see "yellow"--though it may seem counter-intuitive, I only ever see things that are yellow. Though I may see a banana, a lemon, or a glass of orange juice, the most I can say is that they share something in common; if my sight actually were directed to the color "yellow," then yellow would be a thing. But yellow isn't a thing--it's a "form" of things, (to use a Platonic or Wittgensteinian term; they both apply here) a way in which things can be similar to each other. And just like the other "forms" of space and time, though I never actually see yellow, yellow gives me the ability to see things that are (i.e. exemplify) yellow.

Thus, the forms of space, time, colors, sounds, and shapes are all means by which I see, and as such I never actually see them in themselves. But I would also say that redness, hardness, and quietness are matrices, media, or "between-spaces" in which I am situated with their relevant objects, and by which I can come into contact with them. A form such as this lays out a "stage" on which interactions between objects can take place. Thus, I can encounter colored objects on a "colored" stage, a loud sound on a "loud" stage, etc.

Though it sounds odd, the fact that I exist in a medium, matrix, or "between-space" of "greenness" means that I, along with a green object, also share in that greenness.  But this should be obvious--when I look at a frog, there is green in me, in range of my vision. When this happens, there is a green spot in my vision, and as such I share "green-ness" in common with that frog. In fact, I would say that all perception is like this: in order for me to see something, I must share the matrix, the "stage" of the object's form with it--we must both exist in a common medium that embraces all things which share that form.

To put it even more simply, you could say that each form (whether it be space, time, a color, or something more weird, like "squareness") exists equally in all things that exemplify that form. Blue exists in all things that are blue, squareness exists in all things that are square, etc. But one might also point out that two or more things in a representative relationship (like a picture and its object) also share a form--the form of whatever is in common between what the picture and what is pictured (Wittgenstein called this the "form of representation" in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus). Thus, whenever something is a picture of another thing, and by extension whenever something resembles another thing, there is a form, a between-space, a matrix that embraces and exemplifies itself in both of them. In the case of human perception, what I experience through vision, what you experience through vision, and what we both see all share this kind of form, and thus what is "common" between each of the three phenomena comes to show itself.

I am not alone in this idea. The eighteenth-century thinker Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe's Theory of Colors points out:

"The eye owes its existence to light. From an auxiliary, sensory apparatus, animal and neutral, light has called forth, produced for itself, an organ like unto itself; light has called forth, produced for itself, an organ like unto itself; thus the eye was formed by light, of light and for light, so that the inner light might come in contact with the outer light. At this very point we are reminded of the ancient Ionian School, which never ceased to repeat, giving it capital importance, that like is only known by like."

I think that the phrase "like is only known by like" is essential here. I can only ever come into contact with something if I am somehow the same as that thing, if we both "spring" from the same matrix or medium. With regard to color, this means that I must already exist on a "stage" corresponding to color in order to see it at all. So too with space, time, roundness, etc.--in order for me to see spatial, temporal, or round things, I must exist also in the between-space that shares exemplifies qualities. But an interesting consequence emerges from this--even if I am not, say, a dog, a child, or a woman, my ability to come into contact with those things means that I must share something very fundamental in common with them. In other words, since I exist in a between-space with another person, we both spring from the same matrix; we are connected at the very depths of our being. Though I might look different from, say, Regina Spektor, the fact remains that our beings spring from the same depths--we are both exemplifications of deeply fundamental forms.

This brings me back to a point I made in my "The Fire Between Two" post from last month: the fact that I am different from a woman makes my encounter with her a revelation of eternity. Our differences make it so that, in order for us to become intimate, we must descend clear down to the level where the differences spring. In other words, the more marked the difference, the more profound the revelation that comes when I find the medium that exists between us. And to reiterate a point I made in that post, this is why it is so important to defend the role of difference (sexual or otherwise) in our experience of sacredness.

But another consequence emerges from this: if I exist in a medium, matrix, or between-space toghether with all things, then in a very meaningful sense I am connected to all things in my depths. To connect with all things doesn't need a "stepping-over" of boundaries--as D&C 88:67 states, when I am single to the glory shining from within me and from behind the world of my day-to-day life, I "comprehend all things." This takes a willingness to see past the appearances of the world, to go past "seeing" entirely by connecting to the matrices, forms, and between-spaces that exemplify themselves in the things we encounter through sense. By doing this we can truly experience existence as "all in all"--all things contain all things, and I can see anything in anything when I look to the "between" that exemplifies itself in the things of my life (see this link to portions of the Avatamsaka Sutra, a lengthy but supernally beautiful Buddhist scripture that's based on just this idea).

I get the impression that the most fundamental form--that which is between all of us and all things--is what we call the Kingdom of God, the Celestial Kingdom, or what have you. Unlike those who would have you believe it exists on some planet next to some star or other, I suggest that this Kingdom exists very close at hand. It is all around us and within us; it shines through our world, our minds, and our bodies, and yet the darkness in them doesn't comprehend it. To see it you must learn to see without seeing, to know things by the glimmers of an obscure light that shines through them. And of course, it shows up most clearly when we love, for love reveals the invisible fullness between us and all things.

And when we learn to see this Kingdom and its glory, we realize that this world is but the barest reflection of the fullness contained therein. We then begin to suspect that the whole chain of beings and worlds is nothing more than a series of double-facing mirrors; I am a reflection of something higher, and that higher thing is a reflection of something still higher. But in this endless chain of reflection and re-reflection, what is unchanging is not what we see, but what we are. Behind the endless ladder of worlds, we may perhaps discern the unchanging presence of the "between," for after everything else, it is the form of a single Kingdom and its indwelling love that shows itself through the kaleidoscope of images in our world (and all others).

The Island Between: A "Lost" Parable

Over the last few weeks or so, I've begun to re-watch the television series

Lost, on which there are already a few posts on this blog. I still don't think that there is another TV show that rivals its capacity for pure spiritual and philosophical insight, and I recently got a comparaitive insight about the show that I thought I'd share.

The bulk of Lost takes place on an island, convenently labeled and referred to as simply "the Island." This actually quite large landmass has remained essentially undiscovered, and with the exception of a small group of scientists, no one has been able to deliberately find it. To go there, one must be brought there. Whether they are the survivors of Oceanic flight 815, the crew of the Black Rock, or the French Science team, practically everyone who arrives there get thrown into its mess of jungles, ruins, and hatches without their asking for it. But the Island is more than a mess--as character John Locke noted very early in the series, "this place is different, special." It has a healing effect (both literal and figurative) upon those who land on it, and it is largely a result of the Island's graces that the characters in the series--those who were once "lost" in the tangle of their own lives--become found.

At this point, we could compare the Island to the Christian principle of grace--it comes without our asking for it, and when we let it work on us, it begins to heal us and our relationships. And as becomes increasingly clear throughout the series, the grace of the Island comes from the bright light at its center, and one might even say that the Island is just an "incarnation in rock" of what emanates from that light. In fact, one might even suggest that the whole series is nothing more than a slow manifestation of that light--a slow "opening of our eyes" to the luminescent power that reaches out to and binds together the various characters in the series. As such, it is fitting that the last scene of the series is a door opening to a bright light--what was there all along, but needed time and suffering to become clear.

But there is more to this principle than meets the eye. I would urge the reader to remember the core storytelling mechanic of the show: the flashes, back, forward, or sideways, that parallel the main storyline on the Island. Far from being a mere stunt to keep the viewer interested, I would argue that these flashes are a manifestation in cinematics of what the show and its Island are all about. Notice that each of these flashes show the intersection of two storylines--one on the Island, and one off. The Island is thus the intersection--the common ground, the "mandorla"--between not only the past, the present, and the future, but also between life and death and between the lives of the various people that come to it. 

To speak metaphorically, the Island is between all of us and between all things. Whenever the circles in the Venn diagram of two things interact--whether through love, through empathy, or what have you--the Island is becoming present. This place is merely another name for the "between-space" of all things, that which shares equally in the past  and future, the living and the dead, between cultures and genders and personality types. As such, to "crash" on this Island is to be forcefully made aware of the commonality between me and another. Such a crash might occur on a bus, when all of a sudden realize that everyone sitting there is a unique human being with his or her own pains, joys, and losses. It might also happen when someone else shares a few kind words with you, ones which changed the entire course of your day, week, or year. Moroever, such a crash might occur when you--under very unlikely circumstances--meet a peson who later becomes a dear friend or even a signficant other. 

To crash on the Island is to crash into togetherness, into belonging, into love. The Island and its light become increasingly manifest when we share and don't hide from genuinely loving discourse and action--when we "live together, so that we don't die alone." And as you find the common ground between you increasing numbers of people. points of view, and things, you become that much more comfortable there. And as we embed ourselves  in its strange and yet somehow familiar way of life, we begin to see that it is all light--a light that reaches out to us, changes us, and brings us together.

I belive that this "between-space" is very real. While it may not be an Island, I feel that it is both a comfort and the only way certain intellectual problems can be resolved. After all, how can one moment give way to another if there isn't some continuity between them? Or how could I ever communicate to you if there wan't some kind of medium between us? Indeed, how could any two things ever interact if the "between" weren't there, embracing and bringing together all things? This "between," which I figuratively call the Island, is invisible to us, and yet it is the only way by which things can be seen at all. It is the "too close to see," "the light which shines in the darkness, but which the darkness comprehends not." Thus, I belive that this between is the essence of love, of peace, and even of divinity.

This between is an unseen presence in our lives, that which "comes before" our ability to see and experience. And as such I think that it is the key to many mysteries of faith. To give an example, I believe that the reason the Book of Mormon has scanty historical evidence is because it didn't take place in history. On the contrary, the Book of Mormon took place in the "time between time" and "the place between places," that which I have here called the Island. How else could the Book of Moromon integrate elements from both the nineteenth century and the ancient near east (and if certain scholars are to be belived, then also the seventeeth century)? It is a paradox that makes sense only when you consider that it takes place in no one time but in the matrix from which all times are born. Indeed, I think that the way the Book of Mormon lends itself to "likening" is a testament to this point, for it not only speaks of events in some far-flung corner of the world, but of your life and its day-to-day concerns. If I am right, then how fitting it is that the Book of Mormon came through a Urim and Thummim, a lens through which all things can be manifest, past, present, and future!

If I'm going to be honest, I have to say that I think at least some of Lost is inspired. While surely some parts of it surely were just fodder to make suspense or to garner viewers, there is a frequent kernel of spiritual truth and good that shows itself throughout its episodes, one which testifies to our souls of something good and wonderful between us all.

The Fire Between Two

On this blog I've often written about my problem of separateness--the way I've always felt like the separation between self and other is oppressive, alienating, and lonely. I felt somehow despairing that you are not me and that I am not you, for I wanted it it all to be "one body" (2 Nephi 2:11). However, I recently realized that the premises of this problem rested upon unclear thinking on my part: because I didn't ever say what I meant by "separateness," the issue's unclear borders were allowed to swell to monstrous proportions. "Separateness" can actually mean several things. For instance, when I say "I am separate from you," this signifies that I am either a) different from you, or b) cur off from/opposed to you. What I didn't see in all my fretting over the issue is that difference does not equal opposition--I can be different from you without being opposed to or cut off from you. This naturally means that, though I may be separate from you in the way of difference, I can still be close to and intimate with you.

I ultimately realized that I conflated "sameness" with intimacy, whereas the two concepts could not be further opposed. If I must eliminate the difference between me and you to feel a sense of intimacy, then I long not for the co-presence of "two," but the creation of a "one." But a "one" can never be intimate with itself--intimacy needs two for it to be what it is. One, I have realized, is lonely. Only two provides any sense of belonging.
And yet, there is a sense in which the two are one. If you take "oneness" to refer to the state of intimacy, closeness, and love itself, the two can be one without ceasing to be two. However, this effort toward the irreduction of the two is difficult work. As Mormon theologian Adam S. Miller writes in his essay "Love, Truth, and the Meaning of Marriage" (buy the book):

"The maintenance of this fragile Two in its difference is arduous. The constant temptation is for one of the two positions to subsume the difference of the other under its own preferences and thus heal the breach. This is precisely what happens in any kind of chauvinism, male of female."

Especially in the case of sexual difference mentioned in this passage, we have a powerful lust to eliminate difference and to incorporate the other into our oneness. I certainly felt this, and I was extremely frustrated with how insatiable this desire seems to be. But this desire is in principle insatiable. As post-Jungian psychologist James Hillman writes in his essay "Pothos: The Nostalgia of the Puer Aeternus" (buy the book):

"Whether the other be [old to young], female to male, mother to child, death to life--in whatever form the other is constellated from moment to moment--it is beyond reach. The other is an unattainable image, or rather an image that is only attainable through the imagination."

Don't think for a minute that an insatiable desire is a bad thing. Desire is life--when I feel desire the most mindfully and with the most presence, I feel the most alive--and to kill desire is death. When I respect desire I respect the tension between the two, and any attempt to satisfy that desire is an attempt to subsume the two under the one. Whether with breath, food, sleep, or other things, we will never be free of this longing, but we can cease being its enemy. I have learned that desire is better thought of as a friend--you don't force it away by either purging or pandering to the desire, but you let it swell like a raging fire within you. This fire can be uncomfortable, but when befriended it can teach you more about life, death, and intimacy than anything else.

Addictions of any sort happen because a person lacks respect for this flame or for the tension between the un-reduced two.  If I mindlessly reach for a cigarette or click on one pornography website after another, I am seeking after a satisfaction for my desires that perpetually recedes. What the addict doesn't realize is that desire is its satisfaction--the tension between the two is a veritable reward of its own.

A major way in which the tension between the two reveals itself is in issues of gender. I am a man, and I will never know what it's like to be a woman. Similarly, any woman will never know what it is like to be a man. This irreducible difference creates a tension between the sexes, one which many of us seek to resolve by treating of the sexes from within a single paradigm. The problem with this, however, is that any attempt to bring everyone to an experiential "common playing field" removes the beauty and wonder of difference. Feminist philosopher Luce Irigaray perhaps puts it best in her book In the Beginning, She Was (buy the book):

"Our culture is based on a sharing of the same between those who have become the same. Sameness can take the form of material needs but also of cultural or spiritual needs at all levels. In such a culture, we are called to become all alike, on earth and in heaven. There must no longer be master or slave, rich or poor, white or black, and finally no longer man or woman....Within such a world, the intervals between things and between persons are already planned and subject to calculation. There is no longer any between-us that is free, available, still silent still alive. The subjects move on the chessboard of a closed whole. Humans make up a kind of puzzle, as is the case for the totality of the pieces of the logos. There is no longer the possibility for a real creation in human relationships, either horizontally or vertically. The spaces-between are already determined. Each one believes to be moving--as when a word occupies another place and apparently modifies the whole combination of words. In reality, the whole remains the same. Which produces an entropy in the system, an exasperation, necessary conflicts to simulate a possible evolution and, finally, a need to destroy the whole."

I am different from you--I cannot reduce your life, emotions, and knowledge to my own. We are "separate and distinct," and as such I cannot say that "I am you" or that "you are me." However, in order for us to be able to hold a meaningful relationship--to communicate feelings, to learn and grow from each other--there must be a medium or matrix in which we are both situated, a "between-place" that allows us to be intimate. This medium--this relational space that underlies all difference--is spirit (as explained here). As such, we only grow to know spirit through our encounters with one who is different from us, as the space this difference opens reveals eternity.

This window to eternity--one which only opens in the tension between the two--is what we experience as desire. Yes, the Spirit of God burns like a fire, but what most don't realize is that all fire hides this spirit. Whether my desire is satiable, insatiable, permissible or impermissible, when I keep that fire burning I can gaze into the fire of heaven. But as soon as I move to satisfy or purge that desire, the fire goes out, and the window to heaven closes.

As such, it is crucial that some sense of difference remains in our society. If everyone ultimately blends together into a melting pot of homogeneity, all I ever get is more of the same, more of myself, and the heavens close. I think that this is among the major reasons the Church opposes homosexuality as a sin. To engage in the sexual act--the supreme ritual of difference--with one of the same gender perhaps isn't evil, but it precludes that act's innate possibility to reveal eternity through the intimate juxtaposition of the sexes.

Heaven can open right now, if you have eyes to see it. All it takes is for you to respect the integrity of the two. If you don't quench difference and desire by reducing those two into one, you and the other will become the two sides of an opening that leads directly into the fires of eternity.

Aphorisms on the Book of Mormon

Over the past few months, I've done a lot of thinking and praying about the Book of Mormon. I am now more convinced than ever of its truth, and I feel obliged to continue writing posts that elucidate it's deeper significance. But I think I've reached a point in my understanding where I would ruin the insights that I've gained if I ever put them down directly in writing or speech--just like in the Book of Mormon, there are some things that are better felt than said.

So in what follows, I'll try to convey what I've learned through indirect means. By using the aphoristic format (short, ambiguous, phrases), I'll try to convey what I've learned in a way that shows more than it says. So without further ado, enjoy:

1. The Book of Mormon often speaks of clouds and mists. How appropriate, then, that the book sometimes strikes us as so opaque.

2. The Book of Mormon is overcast. With what? With words.

3. How often a voice pierces through these clouds!

3a. Voice--the harbinger of light.

4.Like with those at Bountiful, Christ only manifests himself to us when we turn to the voice we hear.

4a. Faith--a hearing, a turning, a seeing-through.

5. Surely it wasn't the devil who shook the ground and raged the sea before Christ came. God did all this.

5a. To think--a God that shows Himself in darkness and destruction. What a comfort to the tempest-tossed soul!

5b. Of course, what is divine darkness but an unfamiliar light?

5c. Perhaps our eyes just need time to adjust.

6. Christ's birth: a day within night

6a. Christ's death: a night within day

6b. But of course--night and day contain each other.

7. The Book of Mormon was born out of the ground. But how was it conceived?

7a. Dying--a fertilization of the earth.

7b. Death--a great womb.

7c. The Book of Mormon--a resurrection in miniature.

8. The voices crying from the dust--what do they cry for? 

8a. The answer comes in a flash from the pregnant darkness--they want to live again.

8b. What is the Book of Mormon (and the act of reading it) but an ordinance for the dead?

9. Moroni "knows our doing," and so, in some sense, he is here with us.

9a. Maybe he, too, lies hidden behind the clouds.

10. The Book of Mormon didn't only come through a Urim and Thummim--it is one itself.

10a. The Book of Mormon contains and conveys the light poured into those glass stones at the time of the Brother of Jared's vision.

10b. It is a light in the darkness as we voyage to the promised land.

11. Where does the sealed part of the plates lie? In heaven, you say? Then perhaps we should turn toward it.

11a. Maybe "the words which are sealed" will be translated when we learn how to find them.

11b. Maybe Joseph Smith, too, needed to turn toward a voice to find and translate the Book of Mormon.

12. The Book of Mormon--deeper than it is tall.

12a. Most of it lies below the surface.

13. Perhaps we need not only gather Israel in the world, but in us as well.

13a: Maybe you, too, are a "captive daughter of Zion." Maybe you are a Jerusalem waiting to come forth.

13b: Zion--the leaven in life's bread.

Thoughts on the Heavenly Mother

Many people wonder why we don't talk much about the Heavenly Mother in the Church. I gave my take on this problem in my post on gender and sexuality, but despite any intellectual answer that a person might give, I suppose this issue will still seem troublesome. However, I've recently realized that, although we don't really talk about the Mother in church, how we describe the Father relies heavily on emotions and traits that many (including the Church) describe as coming more naturally to women. For instance, it goes without saying that our Heavenly Father is nurturing, and all our images of Him rely on feelings of warmth, safety, and tenderness. It thus seems odd that a church which so heavily emphasizes the role of women as nurturers should ascribe to the male Father only nurturing traits.

To clarify, I'm not going with the party line that women are essentially better at nurturing; this belief tends to alienate more sensitive men (such as myself) and leave them feeling out of place, so I won't touch that notion of exclusivity with a ten-foot pole. However, there does seem to be a tendency for women to nurture more than men do, and though some ascribe this tendency to socialization or hormones, I have an idea that those two reasons don't explain all of it. In addition to social or biological influences, I get a very strong impression that the symbolic image of womanhood (and not womanhood itself) is fundamentally attached to images of nurturing, tenderness, etc., and that women pick up on and identify with these images. Though the image of the nurturing mother may vary in degrees from culture to culture, certain fundamental themes recur again and again in the scriptures, mythologies, images, and stories of the world. For instance, with very few exceptions, the earth is always personified as a mother in polytheistic systems. In addition to earth, water tends to be more symbolically feminine, perhaps evoking images of the womb before birth. Also attached to the symbolic image of womanhood are notions of internality, depth, emptiness and darkness (in a positive sense, as in the yin side of yin and yang; remember that the womb is both dark and empty).

If I were to sum up all of these images in one concept, it would be the notion of immanence. The word "immanence "is derived from the Latin prefix "in-" (into, in, etc.) and the Latin word "manere," which means "to dwell." Combine these two and you get the very definition of what I am aiming at: remaining in the midst and mess of things, as opposed to transcending them to go on to something higher and better. Immanence means staying within, as opposed to going outward and upward. Thus evoking a sense of internality and depth, it resonates deeply with the symbolically feminine images and archetypes mentioned above.

But the odd thing is that out of all Christian denominations, Mormonism tends to be one of the most focused on immanence. Eschewing notions of heaven as place of "separate and single" people, we insist that marriage is fundamental to the life of the Spirit, as are the institutions of family and other kinds of relationship. Instead of ignoring the dead and death (as has become popular in the West), we insist that our lives are intimately bound up with those who have died, even going as far as to say that we cannot be saved without each other. Moreover, we also avoid notions of an ethereal, airy heaven, declaring instead (as Joseph Smith said) that "all spirit is matter." Each of these uniquenesses declare our fidelity to the mess and dirt and tangles of life--we stay within our family relationships, our marriages, our origins in those who are dead, and the finitude of our life in matter. We don't transcend life--we embrace it and all of its flaws and its dirt. Methinks old Mother Earth would be proud (see Moses 7:48 for a Mormon take on this image).

But what does this have to do with the Heavenly Mother? Well, one thing I have realized is that you cannot separate your relationship with something or someone from the images you associate with that entity. For instance, my mother is always tied up with my image of her--whether that includes my personal feelings or the images of womanhood or motherhood in general. Moreover, it doesn't take more than a look at our body language (or our common metaphors) to show that human beings think fundamentally in terms of images. Knowing this, what is my relationship to my Heavenly Mother or Father (our parents in the most absolute sense) without the images that human beings so ubiquitously associate with motherhood and fatherhood? These heavenly parents and the respective images of parenthood are tied together--you can't have one without the other.

Considering both the Church's focus on immanence and its attribution of nurturing and tenderness to the Father, an idea surfaces. What if, instead of ignoring and passing over the Mother, our church is actually one of the closest to Her? What if the embrace we offer to the messiness of the world were actually part of the embrace the Mother offers to us? We favor attachment above all, and I wonder if this focus on connection is actually evidence of our Heavenly Mother declaring Her presence after centuries of our culture's symbolically masculine focus on transcendence, detachment, and going-beyond. That's an idea, at any rate--I won't go as far as to declare its absolute truth, partly because I consider the matter too sacred to profane with such rigidity of thought. But it's worth pondering, at least.

In fact, I feel that it's appropriate to discuss some of the imagery in the LDS scriptural canon that supports this idea. For instance, in both the Doctrine and Covenants and in the Book of Mormon, there is a lot of imagery related to symbolism of womanhood. Take for example the ubiquitous term "bosom," as in "a burning in the bosom," and especially when referring to God. For instance,

"I am the same which have taken the Zion of Enoch into mine own bosom" -D&C 38:4

"...his Only Begotten Son, who was in the bosom of the Father, even from the beginning" -D&C 76:13

"The power of God who sitteth upon his throne, who is in the bosom of eternity, who is in the midst of all things." -D&C 88:13

"And now we ask thee, Holy Father, in the name of Jesus Christ, the Son of thy bosom..." -D&C 109:4

"And were it possible that man could number the particles of the earth, yea, millions of earths like this, it would not be a beginning to the number of thy creations; and thy curtains are stretched out still; and yet thou art there, and thy bosom is there..." -Moses 7:30

Et cetera, et cetera...

Also significant are the references to "bowels," evoking connections to the womb:

"Now my brethren, we see that God is mindful of every people, whatsoever land they may be in; yea, he numbereth his people, and his bowels of mercy are over all the earth..." -Alma 26:37

"And thus he shall bring salvation to all those who shall believe on his name; this being the intent of this last sacrifice, to bring about the bowels of mercy..." -Alma 34:15

"Have ye any that are sick among you? Bring them hither. Have ye any that are lame, or blind, or halt, or maimed, or leprous, or that are withered, or that are deaf, or that are afflicted in any manner? Bring them hither and I will heal them, for I have compassion upon you; my bowels are filled with mercy." -3 Nephi 17:7

Also note that the aforementioned scripture with the "mother" earth describes a voice speaking out of the bowels of the earth. Moreover, why not also include the motherly image the pre-descent Jesus Christ uses to describe how he would have gathered Israel?:

"And again, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings, yea, O ye people of the house of Israel, who have fallen; yea, O ye people of the house of Israel, ye that dwell at Jerusalem, as ye that have fallen; yea, how oft would I have gathered you as a hen gathereth her chickens, and ye would not." -3 Nephi 10:5

To make a more daring connection, one could associate the Book of Mormon's frequent references to its being "hid up [in the earth] unto the Lord" with the images of pregnancy and childbearing. Though this may sound odd, it is not without precedent, as the old and deeply powerful Egyptian story of Isis and Osiris demonstrates. To state it very briefly, the god Osiris was destroyed by the god Seth and was severed into fourteen pieces; the goddess Isis then returned to his severed body and used one of the pieces to inseminate herself, after which she gives birth to Osiris anew. Despite the seeming explicitness of this story, it gives a very basic image of the resurrection--namely, that after we are buried in our mother earth, she delivers us anew in a resurrected body. And more importantly, you can associate the symbolic mother's capacity to re-birth a destroyed body with the Book of Mormon's origin story--a record that contains the essence of a people that, though destroyed, lives on again in the book we now hold dear. However, the most relevant takeaway from this principle is the maternal imagery inherent in delivering a book to be reborn out of the ground, making the maternal focus of the Book of Mormon starkly evident.

To wrap up, I think it's very important to realize that, even though we don't really talk about the Mother, that doesn't mean She isn't present in the Church. Even when The Father's and Her images intermingle, we can perhaps discern the immediate presence of a maternal focus in our religion, an emphasis on nurturing, tender love, and growth. To the question of why we don't talk about Her, I can perhaps offer a quote from a famous piece of literature as a response. At the very end of the second part of Goethe's Faust, we encounter a vision of "the Realm of the Mothers," a culmination of the titular character's quest to reconcile himself to the feminine principle. It speaks deeply about the problem, and I exhort those with ears to hear to, well, hear:

"All that must disappear

Is but a parable;

What lay beyond us, here

All is made visible;

Here deeds have understood
Words they were darkened by;
Eternal Womanhood

Draws us on high."