Modern Mormon Men: Guest Post: Lessons from The Tree of Life for a Ga...

Modern Mormon Men: Guest Post: Lessons from The Tree of Life for a Ga...: Look what I wrote! Yep. It's a thing. Enjoy!

Us Against the World

This is pretty much how I feel today. I'm thinking that Tuesdays are a good day to just sort of slow it down. Thoughts? Impressions?

Through chaos as it swirls, it's us against the world. 

There is phenomenal power in music -- power to express our unspoken desires and concerns, power to speak to our souls, power to calm the chaos.

I just want to be there when the lightening strikes and the saints go marching in.

Tonight I know that it all has to begin again.

After a series of life chats with myself and others, I realize that it does indeed all have to begin again. This was not a redirection I anticipated. It has created greater chaos and confusing. These are fun times, I tell you...not really. I kind of hate it...and love it...Oh, sweet confusion!

Through chaos as it swirls, it's us against the world.

So whatever you do, don't let go.

The Problem of Pain Revisited

NOTE: This post is comprised of bits and pieces of a paper I wrote for one of my sociology capstones. The class, "Sociology of Suffering," was perhaps the most interesting, challenging, and thought provoking class I have ever taken. If the post doesn't make sense, don't worry. The class didn't make sense for most of the semester. I got a B+ in the class, but it was hard fought. True story. If you'd like an additional, more easily understood perspective, read this.

In human life, suffering is omnipresent. Whether by war, slavery, self- or other-inflicted, suffering persists. In the midst of one’s suffering, the cry to God follows two strains: “How could you do this to me, God?” and “God, what am I to gain from this?” One approaches God with contempt, the other seeking consolation. Each seeks an explanation for the suffering that has shaken his once stable world, and each turns to an external force to explain that suffering. His pleading begs the question of the purpose of suffering. In either case, he is intrinsically craving knowledge of whether suffering is good or bad, fair or unjust, punishment or blessing.  God’s response or silence to individual suffering further alleviates either the suffering or the desire to believe in an omnipotent, loving God.

Individual conceptions of God vary greatly – from an angry, punishing, Old Testament-style God to a Being working towards a higher purpose, to a loving and protecting Deity (Pargament, AJCP 18(6)). Both have significant ramifications for mental, emotional, and spiritual health (Exline et al., JHP 4(3)). Forgiving God for perceived wrongdoing challenges the spiritual fortitude of believers who endure strong negative experiential outcomes. Indeed, suffering calls into question deeply rooted believes of the goodness of God and the sufferer must endure both his suffering and cognitive dissonance.

Each explanation connotes a desire for a just world, one in which either man’s capacity to cope with the inequalities and injustices of life is not exceeded, or one that allows the individual complete control over his circumstance. Divine attribution serves mainly for the religious as a way to insure that he is not tested beyond his limits (Pargament 1986). Either perspective frames God as either a source of solace or an accessible scapegoat. God is used as solace or scapegoat for suffering as a way of disaffirming the way of being experienced in the world, removing one’s self from the suffering.

Psychologists suggest that religion emerges out of a desire for help and reassurance (Meadow and Kahoe 1984), and that it is sought as a response to what  some (Tillich 1952) refers to as major existential anxieties – the inability to avoid death, fear of meaninglessness or purposelessness, and concern over the consequences of individual conduct. The question religion seeks to answer concerning the suffering of mankind is not so much whether suffering exists or is necessary, but rather whether suffering is a good thing or a bad thing (van Hooft 1998), and religion approaches suffering with the reasoning that there must be some good in the experience; if there is good and meaning to be found in the suffering, the experience becomes, theoretically easier to endure.  As one researcher  asserts, "Suffering loses its prima facie negative character for the victim by being given a transcendent, positive meaning"(van Hooft 1998). Indeed, there is a noticeable shift towards God during times of great personal or societal distress. 

Throughout history, appeals to God have been at their highest during times of suffering – the Black Plague, the Holocaust, or 11 September 2001 to name a few. If bad is indeed an stronger force than good at turning individuals or societies to God, then “God should not thrive in times of plenty but in times of pain, with disease and trauma fueling His perception” (Gray and Wegner 2010). Such a being is strictly a punishing being. Indeed, God may well be called medieval. A God who thrives on pain and suffering, a God who demands perfection and adherence to His tenets is very much the Puritanical God conceived by the Protestant idea as a response to continued, unresolved, and unjust suffering. Religion evolved out of man’s continued failure to explain and eliminate his suffering.

Suffering as an Evil, God as its Perpetrator

As an experience, suffering may be necessary to man’s own necessity for self-overcoming and eventual perfection. However, the negative attribution of suffering to God, and indeed one’s own inability to forgive God for the experience, contribute to the perception that suffering is an inflicted evil. Such a supposition presupposes man’s own innocence in the face of evil, denying any fault of his own doing. The logic of evil (Marion, Prolegema to Charity) appeals to man because it allows him to justly punish his unjust inflictor.

Man punishes God not by projecting his own suffering back onto God, but rather by turning from him, ignoring the omniscient Being. Indeed, to punish God is to kill him, and God willingly accepts His death. The proclamation of God’s death asserts that His timely demise is not enough. “We must still defeat his shadow as well” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science). 

The case of extreme suffering demands justice against the perpetrator, and man turns that blame towards the being that created what he naively believed was the best of all possible worlds.

Such blame does not fulfill the promise of the logic of evil, but rather persists in the eventual hope of the suppression of unjust suffering. Especially in Christian theology, the logic of evil suppresses every external relation, leaving the suffering soul entirely in a voluntary prison, one where only man himself fits as master of nothing (Marion, Prolegomena to Charity). Revenge is the only option for justice as man blames God for his suffering. Suffering must be spread to others for man to feel relief from his own suffering. His query, “How could God do this to me?” becomes a rallying cry against an unjust or apathetic God.

The only response that justice can create is vengeance by eliminating God, indeed to punish him by banishing him from memory. Often punishment seems to be the only response man can use to right his suffering. “Punishment is a vital need of the human soul” (Weil, Void and Compensations) and as such requires not only suffering for the guilty, but also suffering as an educating device. It is not enough to punish the sufferer, man punishes in order to educate the guilty so that he learns not to commit the crime or inflict the suffering again. Inflicting punishment does little for the sufferer except alienate him from the source of blame. Punishment simply causes man to turn on everything the universe represents to him, denying all that was once good and beautiful to him. In this sense, both Nietzsche and Marion concur that the purpose of inflicting punishment or establishing blame is merely to “improve the one who punishes” (Nietzsche, The Gay Science). 

Forgiving God the Inflictor

Even positive attribution to God can cause some dissonance for the sufferer, especially when he perceives his own innocence. To be called upon to forgive the inflictor of the suffering may seem beyond the sufferer, and even more so when the inflictor is perceived to be an all-loving God. The inability to address such cognitive dissonance – and therefore the use of attribution – to move to a point of forgiving God has significant negative implications both psychologically and physiologically. 

In negatively attributing one’s suffering to God, one may not believe that God intentionally or willfully harmed him, but he may believe that it was God who allowed the injustice to occur. When such a stance is taken, it not only has the potential to damage man’s relationship with his God, but also has implications for his anger, psychological stress, and social associations. Even for those who do not express belief in God, forgiving God proves to be necessary in maintaining psychological health. When God appears to be a harbinger of pain and suffering, religious salience often determines the psychological and spiritual impact of suffering.

Often, however, forgiveness is impossible to achieve without also experiencing resentment.  Negative attribution creates the perception that man has somehow been humbled, demoted, or lowered in his standing before God. When man is harmed, there arises within him a series of reactions that seek a desired equilibrium, a place in which the inflictor of the suffering experiences, at least in a small way, similar anguish and suffering. The ideal approach is rather to recognize what the suffering revealed. “It is impossible to forgive whoever has done us harm if that harm has lowered us. We have to think that it has not lowered us, but has revealed our true level” (Weil, Void and Compensation).

Life Is Pain

I've been thinking about pain a lot lately. We experience a lot of it in life. The most pain I have ever experienced was in high school when I blew out my ACL and meniscus. I'm pretty sure that pain trumps pretty much everything. 


Pain is not, of course, simply limited to physical pain. Often, the pain that hurts the most is pain of the soul. When we make mistakes, violate social norms and expectations, or commit what our faith deems to be a sin, we feel pain. That pain stems from various sources -- being ostracized, physical punishment, guilt, remorse, or disappointment.  


The most difficult pain is the pain that comes as others experience pain that you can neither stop nor ease. I can think of at least three experiences like this from my time as a missionary. Those times were devastating experiences. 


These thinkings stem from my emotional preparation for Romania. I feel like that's where most of my posts as of late have stemmed from. My kids have experienced much in their short lives. A lot of that has been pain -- physical, emotional, psychological. They have much to teach me about pain. The pain of my blown out knee pales in comparison to the things these children know. C.S. Lewis wrote, "We have a choice to make when we see extreme suffering. We can let it eat away at us and we can curse God. Or, we can choose to let it break our hearts and enlarge them."


That really is the key to understanding why there is evil, suffering, and sadness in the world. The purpose of pain is to teach, humble, and chastise. It never lasts forever. In a New Testament class I took, we studied the Book of Revelation -- a tricky subject in and of itself. My teacher was quick to point out the importance of numbers. When the Lord says that the afflictions shall be 10 days, what he is saying is that the afflictions, tribulations, and sufferings will be for an imperfect amount of time. In other words, their bounds are set. The things we experience in life -- the bad, ugly, horrible, miserable things -- have an end. 

As William Goldman writes in The Princess Bride, "Life is pain. Anyone who says differently is selling something."

Letting Go

 Of all the things I have learned in life, I have yet to learn this  lesson. I can't let go of things, specifically character flaws. I long to keep them just a little longer before I turn them over or give them up.

While serving as a missionary in Missouri, people would often tell me about their trials in life and then say, "But I've just got to let go and let God." I love that idea and admire those with such faith. I am not one of such strength of character.

Jesus taught his disciples that, "If ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible unto you."

Mustard seed is tiny. Miniscule. It grows into a fairly good-sized bush, by the way. I think there is a double meaning to that scripture. First, if we have faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, we can experience great blessings and miracles. Second, if we have faith like a mustard seed, that is to say that we believe that we can become something greater than we are, we will grow beyond our capacity. We will grow into something we could not imagine to be possible.

I love having my life planned out. I know exactly what courses to take over the next year and a half, what I want to accomplish during that time, where I want to go for grad school, what I want to do after grad school, and so on. There have been times in my life when Heavenly Father said, "Nope. That's not the right path." Frustrated me to no end.

Example: My freshman year of college, I decided I was going to be a high school history teacher. I had everything figured out to do that. I walked into the advisement office to declare my major, and as I walked out, I was struck by the most unsettled feeling. It was like Heavenly Father saying, "I have something different in mind. You need to talk to me about this one." Ugg. And so, I was almost the world's shortest history teaching major.

Lately, I've been learning a lot about letting go and letting God. A lot of it has to do with being humble. We can't have one foot in our will and the other foot in our Heavenly Father's will. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis illustrates this idea beautifully. Writing as if it was Christ speaking, he says:


"Give me all of you! I don’t want so much of your time, so much of your talents and money, and    so much of your work. I want YOU! ALL OF YOU! I have not come to torment or frustrate the natural man or woman, but to KILL IT! No half measures will do. I don’t want to only prune a branch here and a branch there; rather I want the whole tree out! Hand it over to me, the whole outfit, all of your desires, all of your wants and wishes and dreams. Turn them ALL over to me, give yourself to me and I will make of you a new self---in my image. Give me yourself and in exchange I will give you Myself. My will, shall become your will. My heart, shall become your heart."   



Letting go of our will requires that we swallow our pride. When we are filled with pride, we cannot accept God's will over our own. Trust me. Thankfully, Heavenly Father doesn't force us to accept his will. He waits for us to come around. "Yea, he that truly humbleth himself and repenteh of his sins, and endureth to the end, the same shall be blessed -- yeah, much more blessed  than they who are compelled to be humble..."


It may take some time for me to get to the point of being able to swallow my pride and admit that I can't do it on my own, that I am indeed powerless, and that my life has become unmanageable. I don't know that I'll learn how to completely let go and leave things to God for a long time. Perhaps it's due to a lack of faith or an abundance of pride. 


Often, I feel like the person in the poem in the picture at the top of the post -- I get really frustrated when things aren't going according to my plan. When things take too long, or I don't like the outcome, I often ask why it was that way. Lovingly and gently, but with a kind rebuke, Heavenly Father replies, "What could I do? You wouldn't let go." And so, that's where I am. 

I Just Want to Be OK

We each have individual trials, struggles, and sufferings. It's a part of life. Just like birth, puberty, taxes, and death. It comes with the territory. Lately, however, I've been contemplating the purpose of these experiences. Perhaps it is done in preparation for what I will go through in Romania. Perhaps it is just my thinking and over-analysis of said thinking. Who knows? Here are some of the conclusions I have come to.

1) We cannot entirely separate ourselves from our life events. Everything we experience becomes a part of our essence, a part of our soul. In describing the character Platon Karataev, Leo Tolstoy wrote, "But his life, as he regarded it, had no meaning as a separate thing. It had meaning only as part of a whole of which he was always conscious...He could not understand the value or significance of any word or deed taken separately."

2) Again quoting Tolstoy, "Life is everything. Life is God. Everything changes and moves and that movement is God. And while there is life there is joy in consciousness of the divine. To love life is to love God. Harder and more blessed than all else is to love one's life in sufferings, in innocent suffering."

3) It really is the time that we have wasted on our roses that makes them so worthwhile.

4) Everything will be made right in the end. If things aren't right, it's not the end.

5) The gift of love, compassion, and empathy are the greatest things man can aspire to gain in this life. A man is incomplete without these, and yet somehow, paradoxically incomplete with them. Man cannot be saved in isolation. We are not to be atomistic, individualistic, self-interested, Hobbesian beings. Indeed, the greatest thing one can ever learn is just to love and be loved in return. "The salvation of man is through love and in love." -- Viktor Frankl

6) Things will be OK. I will be OK. To love life is to love God. The inverse is also true. The object of our existence is to find happiness -- lasting happiness. That happiness comes as we lose ourselves in others. Viktor Frankl wrote, "The more one forgets himself -- by giving himself to a cause to serve or another person to love -- the more human he is and the more he actualizes himself."


The drive behind the decision to work in Romania stems, I think, from this last Frankl quote. Jesus said, "Whosoever shall lose his life shall find it." We become more and more human each time we give up a part of ourselves in the pursuit of something or someone else. I think that's what makes everything turn out OK in the end. I will be OK. We will be OK. The drive to make a difference is an inherently psychological and spiritual one. We seek psychological fulfillment and understanding of who we are and a spiritual understanding of our place in the world. We will be OK. I promise.

On Being a Commitment-Phobe

A phobia is defined as, "A persistent, irrational fear of a specific object, activity, or situation that leads to a compelling desire to avoid it" (Webster's Dictionary). I therefore, suffer from commitmentphobia. Look it up. Wikipedia mentions it.

I have this very irrational fear of commitment and being tied to a specific thing or job or activity, and so I move around frequently. To avoid commitment to Utah, I leave every couple of weeks. I can't commit to finish school early because I have things I want to do -- extravagant vacations and the like, if you will. I can't commit to relationships or houses, marathons or rock concerts. I hate the idea of commitment for some strange, crazy reason.

The problem is that life requires commitment. Sort of a big problem, right? We commit to an education, to a career, to a faith, a political ideology, or a significant other. All these are essential to finding meaning and purpose in our life. Does a life of commitmentphobia mean a life void of meaning?

I am, however, working on overcoming this phobia. Despite being a nomadic gypsy person, I have successfully decided to commit to a job in Provo that will further my career opportunities. I have planned to finish school on time, which requires staying in Utah starting in April of next year. I have committed to a plan of action for my life after that. I have a five year plan. Finally, I am committed to something.

Commitmentphobia stems, I think, from an inability to make decisions. It's a great trial in life to not be able to make decisions. Making decisions is part of life and when we are indecisive, we try to cop out of living by delegating the decision making process to someone else. We are afraid to make the wrong decision. In our futile attempt to please everyone, we become useless to the very being we need -- ourselves. Our life becomes nothing more than what other people want from us. Nothing is ever what we want.

This is not to say that we should be self-interested, atomistic, individualistic beings. That's a terrible, awful idea. It is to say that to overcome the plague of commitmentphobia, we must do things for ourselves, things that we want to do and not things that others want us to do.

Perhaps, commitmentphobia does create a life devoid of meaning -- personal meaning. Psychiatrist Victor Frankl wrote, "A human being is not one thing among others; things determine each other, but man is ultimately self-determining. What he becomes -- within the limits of endowment and environment -- he has made out of himself...Man has both [positive and negative] potentialities within himself; which one is actualized depends on decisions but not on conditions."

Let us then make the decision to be a man and not a thing. Let us shed our commitmentphobia.

Do You Ever Wonder if He Asks Too Much?

One of the questions I have struggled with for a long time is why God allows bad things to happen to good people. It's my question of the soul that I ponder on and ask God about often. I remember meeting a guy on my mission who had stopped believing in God because "if there was a God, why did he allow the Holocaust or Rwanda?" He continued by saying he had seen a lot of bad things happen in his lifetime and these things had caused him to disbelieve the existence of God.

I am still working on understanding the answer to this question. I know that God loves all His children. He gave us agency so that we could choose for ourselves. Sometimes, the consequences of those choices lead to bad things in our lives. Other times, the trials and suffering come seemingly unprovoked. Either way, God still loves us. Think of the Old Testament story of Job. God says, "There is none like him in all the land." The Lord loves and trusts Job, and yet allows him to be tried beyond anything I could bear. He loses his children and his wealth. His friends turn against him. His wife turns against him. Why? His friends tell him that it was because he had sinned and displeased God. We know that isn't the case. Job did good things, was a righteous person. Why, then, did these things happen to him? God sought to bless him. The scriptures teach us that "whom the Lord loveth, he chaseneth." Sometimes that's the reason these things happen.

The Lord seeks to help us grow and that involves stretching us. Remember what it felt like in junior high when you were shooting up like a sprout? You had growing pains. That's the closest analogy I can think of to explain why bad things happen. Sometimes, God is helping us grow and it hurts, but we pull through and are better for it. (For a good analogy of this, click HERE)

Sometimes I think to myself, "Heavenly Father, I'm not quite sure what you are doing. I don't think I can handle what I'm going through." Do you ever find yourself wondering if God ever asks too much of you in your trials? Sometimes I do. True story. At one point on my mission, there was about three weeks where terrible things were happening in the lives of people I love. Worst part of my mission. I don't think I had a sincere prayer with Heavenly Father during that time. Most of the time it was just anger that I spouted at Him.  I kept asking, "Why are you doing this to them? Why are you making me experience this? What's your problem?" To this day, I don't entirely understand those three weeks.

A BYU professor, John Tanner, wrote, "[The Book of Job] does not answer the question, 'Why does God permit suffering to come to his children.' But it does answer the question, 'How shall we respond.'" He continues by saying the one sure way we come to find answers and peace in our suffering is to seek revelation from God. We have to commune with him. "Apart from what the Lord says," John Tanner continues, "the fact that he speaks to Job at all fulfills Job's deepest need -- to be reassured that God has not forsaken him."

In times of trial and suffering, go to God and seek His voice. It will come. It will reassure. It will comfort. I love the words to the hymn What a Friend We Have in Jesus: "What a friend we have in Jesus, all our sins and griefs to bear; What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer!" The third verse is my favorite: "Are we weak and heavy laden, Cumbered with a load of care? Still the Savior is our refuge; Take it to the Lord in prayer! Do thy friends despise, forsake thee? Take it to the Lord in prayer! In his arms he'll take and shield thee; Thou wilt find a solace there."

The man who wrote that hymn, Joseph Scriven, knew a lot about enduring suffering. Twice, he was engaged to be married, and twice right before the wedding, his fiancée died either from sickness or an accident. Driven to grief, he penned those words. He understood where to turn for peace.

I'm sorry that I couldn't provide more answers to the great question of the soul. I wish I knew the answer to every question, but I don't. The Lord does. Go to him. Thou wilt find a solace there.

PS -- I wrote most of this post before General Conference. This was one of the questions I had on my mind. Two of the talks that were given addressed this topic. They were given by Elder Kent F. Richards and Elder D. Todd Christofferson. They were literally answers to prayer.  

Good Things to Come

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's talk, "An High Priest of Good Things to Come" talks about the role of the Savior as the One who grants us blessings during trials in our lives. He says, "For emotional health and spiritual stamina, everyone needs to be able to look forward to some respite, to something pleasant and renewing and hopeful, whether that blessing be near at hand or still some distance ahead. It is enough just to know we can get there, that however measured or far away, there is the promise of 'good things to come.'"

Sometimes, the blessings we seek don't come instantly or in the time or manner in which we wish, but they do come. "Don't you quit. There is help and happiness ahead." 

Pride -- A Personal Lesson

This post is selections from a paper I wrote for my Book of Mormon class at BYU.

President Ezra Taft Benson defined the central characteristic of pride as enmity – “enmity towards God and man. Enmity means hatred towards, hostility to, or a state of opposition.”The Book of Mormon is a perfect case study of the causes and consequences of pride. Class distinctions showed Nephite enmity towards their fellow men, and their willful disobedience to the commandments was a state of opposition to God. Repeatedly, the prophets warn the people of pride, and repeatedly they fall because of their pride.

As I read through 4 Nephi and the fall of the Book of Mormon Zion, I realized that pride has a lot to do with setting yourself apart, thinking that you are better than those you associate with. That’s why the Nephites began to wear costly apparel. They thought they were better than the poorer people they were forced to share their goods with. I thought to myself: Do I feel this way? Do I see myself as better than the people I’m around every day? Lately, I’ve been considering transferring from BYU to another university in Utah or out of state. My justifications for wanting to transfer came to mind as I read 4 Nephi. It was like Heavenly Father was saying, “Why do you really want to transfer? Do you really feel like this isn’t where you want to be? What are your real motives?

It was a humbling moment. My desire to transfer came because I don’t like the environment here and it doesn’t feel like I belong here. That dislike had turned to enmity for the University because of its narrowness of thought and ideas, its limits on my behavior, and the self-righteousness I saw in others. My disdain towards BYU began to affect my attitude towards the Church. Its people began to irritate me to the point of making going to church a chore. Heavenly Father was trying to help me recognize that pride had gotten hold of my heart and teach me that if I didn’t let it go, there were going to be some pretty serious consequences – my soul was at stake, not just my academic career.

In the October General Conference, President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said,“At its core, pride is a sin of comparison, for though it usually begins with ‘Look how wonderful I am and what great things I have done,’ it always seems to end with ‘Therefore, I am better than you.’ When our hearts are filled with pride, we commit a grave sin, for we violate the two great commandments. Instead of worshipping God and loving our neighbor, we reveal the real object of our worship and love—the image we see in the mirror.”

Through my study of the Book of Mormon, I have learned the powerful consequences of pride and recognized pride in my own life. Elder M. Russell Ballard gave his talk “Learning the Lessons of the Past” for me. He said, “You don’t have to spend time as a Laman or a Lemuel in order to know that it’s much better to be a Nephi or a Jacob. You don’t have to follow the path of Cain or Gadianton in order to realize that ‘wickedness never was happiness’…Learning the lessons of the past allows you to walk boldly in the light without running the risk of stumbling in the darkness.”

Learning from the fall of the Nephites was crucial for me to learn about myself if I was to avoid the same tragic end. When we allow pride to take hold of us, it leads us off the path of happiness towards greater darkness and additional sin. The Nephites were destroyed because in their pride, they would not hearken to the counsels of a prophet of God. Each of us, myself included, run the same risk. None of us are immune to the sin of pride. Hopefully, I learned from the lessons of the past. Pride can and will only lead to unhappiness in the end. That is what the Lord is trying to teach me.