I am grateful for my car wreck . . .

Has it already been ten years?  I still remember the feeling of shock I experienced when my car finally came to a halt, wrapped around that cement poll.  Safety glass – the remains of my windshield and a couple of windows – was everywhere, and for one terrifying minute I was convinced I was paralyzed, certain that that shooting pain in my back was a sign that my spine was going to shatter the second I moved.  My car had fishtailed, I’m still not sure why, and after several brilliant overcorrections, I plowed through two chain link fences before coming to a stop in someone’s front yard. 

I began honking the horn frantically.  After a couple of minutes a red pick up truck flew past me, stopped about a hundred yards down the road, and then slowly reversed.  The three guys inside rolled down their window as they passed me a second time and asked a question that resonates with me more today then it did then: “Are you ok?”

Are you ok?

I was terrified.  My car was totaled.  But I was alive.  I shouldn’t have been.  But I was.  Had it not been for that stupid cement poll, my car would have kept rotating straight into a telephone poll.  But it didn’t.  I was ok.

I’ve thought about that accident a lot over the last decade.  In fact, every Thanksgiving since then I’ve made it a habit of publically posting a list of things I am grateful for.  This year is no different, but given some of the experiences Kindra and I have had over the last couple of years, I find myself grateful for the things that haven’t gone right in my life.  I find myself grateful for my trials that have helped forge me into the person I am today.

I’m grateful that I crashed my car ten years ago.  The experience has certainly made me a little more introspective . . . a little more grateful just to be alive.  But that accident has also contributed to some of the choicest blessings in my life.  I became close friends with Kindra, the love of my life, because I needed a ride to the temple in college.  Would that have ever happened if I had taken a car to college?  Would we be married today? 

I am grateful that I did not get the Morehead Scholarship to UNC.  I was finalist for it my senior year, and being rejected from the program was a huge blow to my self-esteem.  I struggled with feelings of inadequacy and depression for months after the fact.  But, I was really arrogant in high school, and that rejection letter was a real wake up call.  I don’t know what sort of person I’d have become had I been a Morehead Scholar, but I think I’d be a lot more difficult to live with.  They really brainwash you during the finalist weekend, and I definitely drank the kool-aid.  They convinced me that the Morehead would change my life, and if I didn’t get selected, my life probably wasn’t worth changing.  But . . . the only time I ever considered postponing my mission was during the week that I thought I was going to be selected as a Morehead.  Would I have gone a year later?  At all?  Either way, so many of the friends I have today – Lila, Jose, Fabiana, Ely, Ernesto y Gricielda, Ari, not to mention my companions – I would have never met.  My life would be completely different.

I am so grateful I was attacked while in Uruguay.  I am so grateful I lost my tooth.

I am grateful I went to law school.  It is difficult to describe just how much of an emotional roller coaster the experience is to someone who hasn’t lived it.  I was close to a nervous break down more than a few times, and I felt myself chewed up, stretched, and then spit back out.  But, I am better for the wear and tear.  My mind is sharper, my opinions more nuanced, my judgment more reserved.  It has also blessed me with the opportunity to work to promote religious liberty, both in the United States and abroad.  It really shaped me (and helped me make some great friends along the way.)

I am grateful it took me as long as it did to secure a clerkship.  I sent out hundreds of applications.  To Arkansas.  Alaska.  California.  Louisiana.  Puerto Rico.  Guam.   You name it.   But, things kept going wrong with my applications.  I had more than one emotional break down during 2L year as the rejection letters kept rolling in.  I was humiliated by my inability to secure a job.  But, had I had the success I desperately wanted when I wanted it . . . Kindra and I wouldn’t be in living in Detroit right now.  We’d be somewhere else, and not members of the Detroit River Branch.  I wouldn’t be branch mission leader.  I wouldn’t be home teaching companions with a Congolese refugee.  I wouldn’t be working in the temple.  I wouldn’t be teaching Sunday School.  And because of that . . . I suspect I wouldn’t feel as close to God or be as happy as I am right now.  I think I have felt more content, more consistently over the last three months than I have since coming home from my mission.  And that contentment has absolutely nothing to do with my job or economic stability. 

I am grateful that Kindra and I don’t have kids right now.  That is tremendously hard thing to say.  Dealing with infertility has been the hardest thing I have ever done.  It is a hell that cannot be described to people who have not endured it.  But . . . because we do not have kids right now, at this moment, we have been blessed with a greater ability to serve.  We’re able to be temple workers, and be in the House of the Lord every Saturday morning.  We’re able to work more frequently with the missionaries.  We’re able to spend more time with each other, get out of debt faster, and have adventures that, while not impossible, would be more difficult with a baby-on-board.  I still desperately want to be a father, but I recognize the serene blessings I have received because I have been asked to wait for that stage of life.  And I sense that this tour of duty in parental purgatory is going to make us into a better mom and dad.  I think we will appreciate our children more – however they come into our family – and be more grateful when they come.

In a similar vein, I am grateful for the severe trial of faith I have experienced over the last year.   This time last year (in part because of not having kids), I felt as if my faith was collapsing . . . and it only got worse as the months went on.  But, as I have slowly emerged from that darkness, I have found a great serenity in belief.  My testimony feels different . . . more grounded in the Savior and his atonement than it was before.  More secure.  More rich.  But, I also developed  a greater understanding and love for those who struggle with faith and the Church than I did before.  I feel less judgmental, and more desirous to help those who doubt.  Not to simply explain away their fears and apprehensions, but to comfort them, to cry with them, and to assure them that they belong.  To help them believe.  To help them hope . . . even if they can’t say they know.

I am grateful that God is not content with my vision of my future.  I am grateful he is not content with my vision of myself.  He is the great chess master.  The master carpenter, who sometimes cuts me, hammers me, nails me.  It hurts sometimes, but he is constructing something much bigger than I can see.  It’s all in the blueprints.  He is making me like him . . . one tiny nail at a time.  And for that, I am eternally grateful.

I’m OK.

Why Not Me?

This year has been a difficult one.  Possibly the most difficult year of my life  Kindra and I have struggled with infertility. I was completely unprepared for how emotionally trying that was going to be. I spent months searching unsuccessfully for a job. And may have had an emotional break down or two as a result. I’ve watched family members and friends have to work through their own challenges, and been forced to realize that I was powerless to help.   A feeling of helplessness has characterized a lot of this year.  But, we’ve marshaled on, and each time I felt I was at the end of my rope, I’ve discovered more rope down below.   

There have been good weeks and there are bad weeks.  Good days and bad days.  Two Sundays ago was a bad day, and after another set back, I found myself asking “Why me?  Why God?  Why me?”  Those aren’t the sorts of questions I like asking, but I was angry and upset, and just wanted to know why I had to pass through this.

But over the past few days, I feel as if my heart has been softened, and my question has changed. Why not? Why not me?  I think around Thanksgiving - and throughout the year really - we often reserve our gratitude for those blessings we have which are above and beyond those things which we feel we deserve.  We set a minimum bar - those blessings we expect - and everything below that bar seems to just fade into the background.  They become furniture.  Place settings.  Scenery.  Things we don’t even notice until they are gone.  And ironically, the more that we have, the more blessed we are, the less blessings we tend to notice.  

Each of us has been served a delicious ice cream sundae, but when we bow our heads, we often thank God for just the cherry on top.

I have been blessed with incredible opportunities.  An incredible wife.  An incredible family.  So again, I ask myself - why not me?  The majority of our Heavenly Father’s children have been born in poverty, in generations without vaccines or air conditioning or refrigeration.  Why not me?  Most of our spiritual brothers and sisters have died illiterate, unable to spell their name, let alone read the Book of Mormon, Harry Potter, or this blog post.  Why not me? Thousands, tens of thousands of Christians are fleeing for their lives right now in the Middle East. Why not me?  Four thousand of my brothers and sisters have died from Ebola in Africa.  Why not me?  Millions of children die every year from poverty, disease, and neglect.  Millions more are abused and cry themselves to sleep at night.  Why. Not. Me?

I have a close friend who’s father was falsely accused by his secretary. He lost his business and spent two years in jail before he was ultimately acquitted.  Why not me?  I have a dear friend in Uruguay who turned to prostitution because she had no money to buy milk for her children.  Why not me?  Why not me?  

Every year in the United States, 5,000 teenagers die in car accidents and 400,000 more are seriously injured.  But when I totaled my car when I was 17 . . . I walked away unscathed.  Why not me?  Why not me? I can't answer that.  None of us can.  But I do know that that I am so blessed in so many ways that I never even acknowledge.  But today, at least, I want that to change.  I want to be more appreciative of the blessings in my life, and the wonderful world in which I live.  So without further adieu, here goes.

First and foremost, I am grateful for the atonement of Christ.  As the Book of Mormon says, every good thing comes from him.  I cannot sing his praises enough.

I am grateful for a beautiful wife who makes me laugh, and holds me when I cry. A woman who believes in me.  A woman who - when I say we’re going to go dig in the dirt for six weeks in Israel - says ok.  I could have never gotten through law school without her, and I am looking forward to having her by my side for decades and eternities to come. 

I am grateful for a wonderful family.  To have always had a roof over my head and food to eat. For a mother who taught me to read, drive, and dive and drove me to baseball and swimming practices, and cooked me sugar pancakes and fruit salad when I turned 16.  For a father who taught me to listen to the Spirit and work hard, and introduced me to skiing, backpacking, and the scriptures.  Who got on a plane week after week to travel for work, so that I wouldn’t have to move while I was in high school.  For siblings who have always been there for me.  For the brother who sent me a leather jacket while he was on his mission because he heard that my girlfriend had broken up with me and invited me to play D&D with his college friends  For the older sister who let me sneak into her room when we were younger, and provided me with an endless supply of butterfingers and eyelashes.  For the younger sister who let me crash in her dorm room and drink Dr. Pepper and watch Family Feud when all of my friends graduated and left me alone at UNC. For a niece and nephew who think I’m a wizard and a superhero, respectively.  Maybe we can convince this new one I’m a decent guy . . .

I suppose this would be a good time to mention my in-laws as well.  I hear horror stories from friends of obnoxious in-laws.  I don’t have that problem.  I couldn’t ask to marry into a better family.

I am grateful for good friends.  The older I get, the more unique my high school experience seems to be.  This year The Club will be celebrating our tenth annual progressive dinner.  I can’t imagine what my life would be like if I had never met Bryan and Nick.  Luke and Tiffany.  Hannah and Nikhil.  Colleen and Dr. Love.  Patrick. Scott. Tim.  The list goes on.  That’s special.

And of course, there’s BJ and Maria. And now Evan. I was really worried that when Evan was born that I’d feel angry or jealous.  Kindra and I had been trying to have kids for about two years, and I worried - had nightmares even - that this kid was going to somehow drive a wedge between the Johnson and the Heilpern households.  But he didn’t.  In fact the day he was born was one of the happiest I’ve felt in law school.  I spent the rest of the day showing friends his picture and was thrilled to have a Hawaiian nephew.  That was a tender mercy if I’ve ever known one.  I can’t say enough about the Johnsons, and how much they mean to me.

And then there my new friends here in Utah.  The Morses.  Daniel Ortner. Jamey Mora. Sarah Jenkins. Claudia Boyd-Shelley. The Porters.  The Priors. The Deans.  The Stallings.  The list goes on.    

I’m grateful for law school.  There.  I said it.  I really am.  I didn’t really want to come to BYU.  I came kicking and screaming because I felt it was the right things to do.  But I have had an amazing experience.  I’m grateful for my professors - D. Gordon Smith, RonNell Andersen Jones, Aaron Nielson, Ryan Tenney, Brigham Daniels, Fred Geddicks, Judge Pead, Justice Lee.  I have been stretched, chewed up, and spit out - and I am better for the wear and tare.  My horizons have been stretched, my vision expanded, and my intellectual abilities fine tuned.  Other than my mission, it has been the most formative and soul-expanding experience of my life.

I am grateful I have a job lined up for after graduation.  Two jobs actually.  It makes 3L year a heck of lot easier.

I am so grateful I had the opportunity to serve a mission in Uruguay.  For the companions I served with and the people I taught.  I am grateful for the people in Fray Bentos who took care of me when I was attacked.  For Hermano Curbello, who came to the hospital to make sure I was alright, even though he was the ward mission leader for the other congregation in town.  For my companion, who took care of me, and made sure I got to the hospital when I was delusional and unconscious.  For the man in the jeep - I don’t even know his name - who stopped and gave us a ride.  For Lila.  For Jose.  For Susy.  For Maria.  The list goes on and on.  I left more than my tooth in Uruguay.  I left a portion of my heart.

I am grateful for electricity.  I’m grateful for the internet.  I’m grateful for indoor plumbing.  I’m grateful for a wonderful apartment, a wonderful ward, and inspired priesthood leaders who encouraged me to focus on my blessings and pray for peace when I was feeling discouraged.  I am grateful to live in a wonderful country, where my passport gets me in the door of any country on Earth (including Saudi Arabia, oddly enough).  Over 75% of the world lives under regimes that restrict religious liberty in one way or another.  My in-laws in Saudi had their sacrament meeting broken up by the religious police.  I don’t have to worry about that in the States.  And that is something to be grateful for, indeed.

I am grateful to live in a country where I really can be anything I want to be.  Most people in the history of the world had to be peasants.  They were farmers.  Maybe blacksmiths, if they’re lucky.  But, in less than five months, I will have two degrees from two of the best universities in the country.  And I will graduate with almost no debt.  I’ve had amazing professors both here at BYU and at UNC.  Learned Spanish, Greek and Hebrew.  Lived in Israel and Uruguay, and visited Brazil, Argentina, Germany, England, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Austria - all since starting college.

I am grateful for a talk that Garrett Johnson gave in Sacrament meeting about a year ago today.  He talked about being grateful for our trials.  I’m not sure I understood what he meant then, but I think I am starting to.  I am grateful to be clay in the master’s hands, and if I must face the fire, it is only because he doesn’t want me to stay dirt for very long.  I am grateful for the many times the Lord has rescued me and my family in moments of crisis in the pass.  It makes taking that leap of faith a little easier even if it’s still hard.  He’s caught us in the past, and he will catch us again.  I don’t need to have kids right now, or a job, or anything for that matter to thank him for trusting me enough to allow me to pass through this crucible and emerge on the other side a better man and a little bit more like him.

And as always, I am so grateful for that cement pole . . . that stupid cement pole that totaled my car and saved my life.  I have no idea why it was there . . . but I hope it always is.

Achieving Zion: Unity and Discord in the Church

When I was in high school, I served for several years on my Stake Youth Committee.  This committee – which was composed of two high school students from each LDS congregation in the region along with the regional adult leadership of the youth program – was supposed to meet regularly to plan monthly activities for high school students in the area.  In theory, the high school students on the committee were supposed to take a key roll in the deliberations. In practice, however, it was the adults who ran the show.  The teenagers in the room were mostly there to fill empty chairs.  We rarely felt empowered to make decisions, and would often show up only to discover that the few decisions we were allowed to make had been overturned or forgotten by the adults in between meetings. 

On a few occasions, our deliberations became quite heated, with the teenagers and adults in absolute opposition to one another.  We would bicker ad nauseum about some particular subject until, after 45 minutes or so, the teenagers would waive the white flag – not because we had been convinced but because we realized our opposition was futile.  We didn’t really feel like we had a say.                 

I do not bring up these experiences to bash those leaders that I worked with almost a decade ago.  On the contrary, they were righteous men and women who were trying their best to do what they thought was right.  Did they do so imperfectly?  Of course.  But, so did I.  I mention it only because those early experiences in Church leadership instilled in me two beliefs about how the Church operates that have turned out to be completely false:

     (1) The Church hierarchy in wards and stakes is one big agree-fest.  Adult leaders never disagree                  about anything

     (2) This unanimity is won because those in auxiliary capacities just shutup and do what they’re told.

After I graduated from high school, I enrolled in the University of North Carolina at

Chapel Hill where I attended the local singles ward – a special LDS congregation composed entirely of single adults from the ages of 18 to 31.  While there, I was asked to serve first as President of the UNC Latter-day Student Association and later as president of the Durham Stake Institute of Religion.  In these capacities, I had the privilege of serving closely with regional ecclesiastical leaders and served on the Institute of Religion Advisory Committee – a committee not all that different in form from the one that had so frustrated me as a teenager. But the results were entirely different.

In addition to myself and my counselors, this committee included a member of the stake presidency (who I will call “President Peters”), the high counselor in charge of Institute (aka “Brother James”), and the stake Institute director (“Brother Johnson”). I do not think I could have selected three individuals more different had I tried.  President Peters was a general contractor.  He was a man of few words.  He liked guns and trucks, and was one of those people you were never quite sure if they were kidding.  Brother James was professor of public policy at Duke University.  He was eccentric and energetic, and played viola in the Raleigh Symphony Orchestra in his spare time.  Finally, there was Brother Johnson, a career seminary teacher.  He was a “feeler,” with a big heart, who frequently got teary-eyed during lessons.  To my shock and amazement, Brother Johnson was a convert to the Church, who had grown up a hippy.  As a teenager he had long hair, did drugs, and played in a rock band. 

With such distinct backgrounds, it is unsurprising that these men frequently disagreed during meetings.  At times the exchanges were pointed, but never became hostile.  The goal was not only unanimity, but unity and on several occasions when an agreement could not be reached, President Peters would suggest we table the issue, and each personally take time over the next month to ponder and pray about the subject and seek the Lord’s will.  When we would reconvene, unity was achieved through humility, mutual respect, and (above all) a desire for each of us to know the will of the Father.

This attitude of mutual respect extended even to me and my counselors, even though we were at least twenty years younger than each of them.  They had faith in our ability to receive revelation, and considered us to be equal members of the committee.  No decision was reached until each of us, including the undergrads, were on board.

           

This attitude is not unique to the Durham stake, but rather is the patter that the Lord has set for the government of his Kingdom.  Way back in 1831, the Lord instructed the Presiding Bishop as follows: “And now, as I spake concerning my servant Edward Partridge, this land is the land of his residence, and those whom he has appointed for his counselors . . . Wherefore, let them bring their families to this land, as they shall counsel between themselves and me. For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward.” (D&C 58:24-26).

Years ago, I read an article which quoted President Eyring’s description of his first interaction with this sort of Church governance:

As president of Ricks, he attended his first meeting with the General Authorities – including the First Presidency.  He approached the meeting with eyes trained by years of research on how decisions are made by groups of people in business and government.  As he watched the meeting in Salt Lake he thought, “This is the strangest conversation I have ever heard. Here are the prophets of God and they are disagreeing with an openness that I had never seen in business,” he recounted at the Church press conference, noting that in business people are careful about what they say and to whom they say it.

During the course of the meeting, however, the conversation began to converge upon what appeared to be a single opinion.

“I saw the most incredible thing.  Here are these gifted people with different opinions and suddenly the opinions just began to line up.  I thought, ‘I have seen a miracle.”  I had seen unity come out of a wonderful, open exchange that I had never seen in all my studies of government or business or anywhere else.”

But President Eyring didn’t know there “was another miracle coming.”

Just as he expected President Harold B. Lee, who was conducting the meeting, to announce the unified decision, he was surprised again.  Instead, President Lee said, “I think we will bring this matter up again some other time.  I sense there is someone in the room who is not yet settled.  And he went on the next item.”

President Eyring was pondering the exchange when he witnessed a member of the Twelve walk past President Lee and say, “Thank you.” President Eyring knew the person wanted more time to learn and ponder.

It was then that President Eyring realized that, in the Church, it is possible to have a “different, more effective approach to decisions in groups.”

“This is what it claims to be,” he said. “This is the true Church of Jesus Christ.  Revelation is real . . . even in what you would call business kinds of settings.  We can be open.  We can be direct.  We can talk about differences in a way that you can’t anywhere else, because we are all just looking for the truth.  We are not trying to win.  We are not trying to make our argument dominant.  We just want to find what is right.”

Let us all strive to be honest seekers of the truth and to govern our wards and stakes according to this inspired model. It is sometimes easy to criticize from the cheap seats local or general Church leaders when they make decisions we find foolish or short-sited. But, as I have grown older I have found that the vast majority of leaders I have interacted with are striving to follow the Lord’s admonition.  I was annoyed for a long time at those leaders who I felt disregarded my opinions while I served on the stake youth committee. I do not know what was in their heart, but I do know what was in mine.  I viewed those meetings as an us vs. them, and I was trying to win.  Perhaps the leaders could have done a better job of listening to us, but I certainly could have done a better job listening to them.

In Moses we read that “the Lord called his people Zion because they were of on heart and one mind.”  Let us always remember that achieving this sort of celestial unity – which must be our goal – will require our humility, and not just the humility of those with whom we disagree.

"Ten Points for Gryffindor" - Combatting the Hermione Granger Syndrome in a Gospel Setting

I am Hermione Granger

Recent studies have suggested that children are at risk of developing what researchers call "fixed mindsets"when they are praised at an early age for being innately intelligent.  A "fixed mindset" means that a person believes "that their intelligence . . . is what it is and isn’t going to change. It comes from their genes, perhaps, or their early experiences (thanks Mom and Dad!) but that was determined a long time ago and now their brains are set." In other words, they don't believe that they can get any smarter over time. One study divided fifth graders into two groups and had them solve a series of identical puzzles.  At the beginning, the puzzles were tremendously easy and could be solved in just a few seconds.  After completing each puzzle, the investigators would compliment the students. Those students in Group A were told things like, "Wow, you solved that really fast - you must be really smart" while students in Group B were told, "Wow, you solved that puzzle really fast - you must have worked really hard."

The difficulty level of the puzzles was then ratcheted up significantly.  Interestingly enough, students in Group A expressed greater levels of anxiety during this part of the test than their counterparts in Group B. Then, when students were given the choice between returning to work on the previous set of easy problems, or continuing to toil away at the difficult puzzles, students in Group A overwhelmingly chose the easy problems, while students in Group B stuck to the more challenging set. 

I call this the Hermione Granger Syndrome. For those of you who don't understand the reference (i.e. those of you who have been living under a rock for the last decade and a half), Hermione was the know-it-all best friend of Harry Potter in the Harry Potter series.  She was a natural at magic, and even before she started at Hogwarts had learned a few basic spells.  She was the first student in her class to successfully transfigure a match into a needle, thus establishing her reputation early on as the "smartest witch in her class."

Most subjects came easy to her . . . but those that did not, she quit.  In Prisoner of Azkaban, she completely rejected the entire discipline of divination and then failed to finish her Defense Against the Dark Arts exam because the boggart proved too much to handle.  Then, in Deathly Hallows we learn that she never even mastered how to fly a simple broomstick. Despite her brilliance, she avoided those few subjects that were truly difficult for her.  

In high school - I was Hermione Granger (except for being American and muggle . . .  and, you know, male). I was naturally gifted at a lot of things, and tended to prefer those subjects that came easy to me.  I sailed through English and Social Studies, and took home prizes in classes that I didn't even have to try very hard in. But I didn't like math. And I hated Spanish. They didn't come easy to me, and I didn't particularly enjoy doing things that were hard.  Year after year I accepted Bs because I didn't want to have to exert any more energy than I did in my other classes where I got As. I would offer excuses and say "I'm just not a math person" or "Spanish just isn't my thing."  It made me feel better, but it was a lie.  In truth, I just didn't know how to put in the work necessary to master those subjects.  I also didn't think I should have to.

Some us struggle with this Syndrome in a gospel context as well.  As children, we quickly picked up on the pattern: every Sunday School question could be answered by either "Jesus Christ," "pray," "read the scriptures," or "go to church." We quickly memorized the major stories in the scriptures, we could draw the various circles involved in the Plan of Salvation, and could regurgitate them at the drop of a hat.  Without breaking a mental sweat, we knew all of the answers, and were praised at a young age for knowing our stuff.   Maybe our leaders even called us particularly "spiritual."

The problem is, God wants us to break a mental sweat.  In fact he has commanded us to do so over and over and over again.  For example, Doctrine & Covenants 4 states: "O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day." Did you catch that?  The part about the mind.  God does not just expect us to serve him mentally, he expects us to serve him with all our mind.  Knowing the right answer is not the same thing as serving the Lord with all our mental capacity.  We therefore should not be surprised when understanding certain doctrines does not come easily to us, but instead requires a real mental effort to figure out.

Unfortunately, some us don't know how to exert this kind of mental energy.  Having been raised on a diet of simple puzzles, many are unaware that a complicated set even exists.  After all, how many times have we been told that the gospel was "simple?" How could such a simple plan include anything so complicated? Others become so accustomed to being a "scripture scholar" that they become seriously disturbed the first time they think of a question that they don't know the answer to.   Like Hermione, this leads them to dismiss new areas of knowledge that they are uncomfortable with.

I have a close friend who teaches religion at BYU.  He is an amazing teacher, and I had him as both an institute teacher and religious studies professor while he was getting his PhD at UNC.  He once had a student tell him, "Brother Grey, I just can't accept what you're teaching because I've never heard it before." 

While that sort of "fixed mindset" may be the practice of certain Christians inside and outside the Church, it certainly does not square with the actual teachings of Jesus.

God doesn't want you to understand

In Matthew 13, the Savior recounts one of his best known parables: the parable of the sower.  You know the story.  A man goes forth to plant his crops and sows seeds all over the place.  Some fall by the wayside and are eaten by birds.  Some fall on stony soil and are subsequently scorched by the sun.  Others fall among thorns and are choked by the other plants.  And a select few fall on good ground and bear fruit.

Chances are good that as you read that story, you went ahead and filled in the symbolic explanation subconsciously: the sower is Christ, the seed is “the Word,” the thorns are the “cares of the world,” etc. The explanation seems so obvious to those of us who have heard the story since birth, who have sat through a hundred Sunday School lessons and sacrament meeting talks on this very subject, who cannot even remember ever hearing the parable without already knowing what Christ was driving at before hand.  But if we had been there on that Galilean hillside, and with our neighbors heard this parable for the first time without any preconceived understanding, we would have no idea what Jesus was talking about.  Our first thought would probably have been something like: "Why is this guy sowing seeds among thorns to begin with?  Couldn’t he tell it was stony ground?  What’s he doing planting seeds by the wayside anyway? Martha, remind me not hire this Jesus guy as a farmhand."

Even his closest disciples were confused, and required an explanation. They asked him straight up, “Why speakest thou unto them in parables?”  The answer may surprise you: “Because it is given unto you [i.e. the apostles] to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, but to them [i.e. the people he was actually teaching] it is not given . . . therefore speak I to them in parables: because they seeing see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.”

You see, by his own admission, Jesus did not intend for his listeners to understand him.  At least not all of them.  At least not right away.  He taught about fish and sheep and weddings not because they were effective teaching tools that facilitated learning (as we sometimes suggest), but because they were effective teaching tools that facilitated confusion.  Only those who, like the disciples, were compelled to ask him for further light and knowledge were brought into the inner circle and able to understand the message. Everyone else was kept in the dark (whether they realized it or not).

This message is reiterated in the Book of Mormon.  To the lawyer Zeezrom, the prophet Alma explained, “It is given unto many to know the mysteries of God; nevertheless they are laid under a strict command that they shall not impart only according to the portion of his word which he doth grant unto the children of men, according to the heed and diligence which they give unto him.  And therefore, he that will harden his heart, the same receiveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word, until it is given unto him to know the mysteries of God until he know them in full.” (Alma 10:9-10).

This concept can be uncomfortable for some Latter-day Saints.  At least it was for me.  We believe in a personal God, one who is willing to reveal himself in all his majesty to a fourteen-year old farm boy, and who is willing to do the same to each of us as soon as we are ready.  We believe in personal revelation, and often revel in the beautiful simplicity of the restored Gospel.  To believe that Christ would intentionally hide the ball and be purposefully enigmatic seems antithetical to other aspects of the Savior’s character which we discuss more frequently.  Nonetheless, it is true. The Lord is not always straightforward. 

Recognizing that God not only allows his scriptures to be confusing but at times intends for them to be so is an important step in understanding the revelatory process. As Neal A. Maxwell has said, “Puzzlement . . . is often the knob on the door of insight.  The knob must be grasped with firm faith and deliberately turned in order for one to see and to experience what lies beyond.”

No really guys, pondering IS necessary

While teaching the Nephites after his resurrection, Jesus taught how to handle this inevitable confusion. "I perceive that ye are weak, that ye cannot understand all my words which I am commanded of the Father to speak unto you at this time. Therefore, go ye unto your homes, and ponder upon the things which I have said, and ask of the Father, in my name, that ye may understand, and prepare your minds for the morrow, and I come unto you again." (3 Nephi 17:2)

The prophet Joseph F. Smith provides us with a wonderful example of this type of meditation in action.  On October 3, 1918, he was sitting in his room struggling to understand the meaning of some confusing passages in 1 Peter 3-4.  In particular, he said he "wondered at the words of Peter -- wherein he said that the Son of God preached unto the spirits in prison, who sometime were disobedient, when once the long-suffering of God waited in the days of Noah -- and how it was possible for him to preach to those spirits and perform the necessary labor among them in so short a time." (D&C 138:28)

Dang, that is a good question.  Most people probably never even considered it.  They probably either just accepted the fact that "God is all-powerful and can do all things" and moved on, or used this passage to prove that "logically" believing in the gospel just doesn't make sense.

But Joseph F. Smith took a different route.  He says that he "sat in [his] room pondering over the scriptures; and reflecting" and that as he did so "the eyes of [his] understanding were opened."  He then beheld in open vision the great hosts of the dead, and the mysteries that were explained to him by the Spirit that day are now canonized in Doctrine and Covenants 138. Go read it.  No really, right now. All that revelation and outpouring of new doctrinal insight came because he was willing to ponder and chew on a scriptural passage that by his own admission did not make sense. Joseph F. Smith's namesake, Joseph Smith, received many of his revelations the same way.

Perhaps the reason that the scriptures are sometimes contradictory, the reason doctrines are sometimes so paradoxical and confusing, is because the Lord wants us to receive revelation more than he wants us to win ten points for Gryffindor.  Perhaps making some of the right answers unobvious is the only way that the Lord can convince us to exert all of our mental energies, a necessary pre-requisite to understanding all of the mysteries of God. In other words, confusion is the carrot the Lord uses to help us to chase inspiration, instead of "lean[ing] unto our own understanding."

The Lord has commanded us to "[t]reasure up in [our] minds continually the words of life" (D&C 84:85) and to "[s]tudy it out in [our] minds."  (D&C 9:8).  We can choose to do so by tackling those gospel subjects which we do not understand, chewing on them slowly as Joseph F. Smith did, believing that there is a mystery out there which the Lord is waiting to reveal.  Or we can choose to ignore the Lord's admonition, stick to the "milk," and grumble when certain doctrines do not seem to add up.

It's your choice, Hermione.  You choice.

"Everything I need to know in life I learned in Primary" . . . Kind of.

On the creation, dinosaurs, and belly-buttons

When I was five years old, I distinctly remember "learning" in Primary (children's Sunday School) that while creating the world, our Heavenly Father first created all of the plants and animals and then our Heavenly Mother created people.  This is blatantly false doctrine and not part of Mormon theology in any way, shape, or form, but nonetheless I believed it.  It made sense to my kindergarden brain, and I still remember being shocked when my parents told me after Church that day that it wasn't true.

Now, to be fair to my primary teachers, I sincerely doubt that anyone actually "taught" me this.  I was a typical, rambunctious five-year old - one who enjoyed enacting elaborate death scenes while singing "Once there was a snowman"and who had in depth conversations with friends about bowel movements instead of paying attention to the lesson.  I once even participated in throwing a girl out the window (at her request) during the few minutes before class started.  It is therefore far more likely that I was simply not paying attention and, therefore, misunderstood what was being taught.

Children do this all the time, and if not corrected, can go on believing things that are not true for years.  I was in college before I realized that dinosaurs did not have an ancillary brain in their tails.  I still remember the cartoon on Disney Channel that "taught" me this myth when I was four.  My brother was twenty and a practicing paramedic before he realized that your belly-button does not, in fact, keep your skin on.  When he was a small child he asked my mom why we have belly buttons and she jokingly told him that it kept our arms and legs attached.  Even this false explanation got jumbled over the years.

But while dinosaur butt-brains and belly-buttons have little eternal significance, a belief in false doctrine (or a warped understanding of true doctrine) can be a major stumbling block when a person gets older.  One can be an active member of the Church and still not know very much about the gospel.  In fact, I have found that those who really understand the most about the gospel are the ones most willing to perpetually refine their understanding of even the most basic doctrines of the Kingdom, while those who know the least are the ones who assume that they know it all already.

"Everything I need to know in life I learned in Primary . . ."

I had a companion on the mission who I will call "Elder Smith" who struggled with this problem at the beginning of his mission.  While he grew up in an active Latter-day Saint home, he was not particularly enthused about the gospel. He hated scripture study and was very uncomfortable any time I wanted to discuss anything about the gospel that he had never thought of before. When it came to Church-stuff, he lived by the mantra "Everything I need to know in life I learned in Primary."  A Church leader had cross-stitched that for him when he was 12, and it had hung on the wall of his bedroom (and in his heart) ever since.  He honestly believed that once he turned twelve, no more learning was required.

Now, to be fair to Elder Smith, there is a kernel of truth in that cross-stitch.  A quick review of the Children's Songbook reveals a shockingly broad number of doctrines that we teach children through song.  In primary, I not only learned that "I am a child of God," that Christ "paid the price for all our sins", and that because of him I will be resurrected (see Did Jesus Really Live Again?), but also that the lost ten tribes will literally be regathered in the last days, and certain specific details about Christ's future millennial rein. (See The Tenth Article of Faith). The problem is that I didn't understand the meaning of many of the doctrines that I was singing about.  After all, I was in college before I realized that the "popcorn popping on the apricot tree" was actually a bunch of apricot blossoms and not a figment of my imagination. (For my sake, please, if any of you just realized that by reading this blog, please confess in the comments section).  Why would it be any different for the far meatier doctrines of the gospel?

In some respects, Elder Smith's understanding (or rather his misunderstanding) of his own cross-stitch exemplifies the problem many members face when they attest to believe doctrines which they do not fully understand. (TRANSLATION: All of us, all the time). He thought the phrase "Everything I need to know in life I learned in primary" meant that his gospel literacy peaked at age twelve.  To him, everything from there on out should simply be review.  Hence, scripture study was a bore. How could he possibly have a question when he already knew all of the relevant answers? He knew it all, so why keep studying? But the things he "learned in primary" included the inevitability of facing doubt ("Heavenly Father, are you really there?") and the importance of the perpetually searching for more truth ("Search, ponder, and pray are the things that I must do").  He also learned about  the importance of "increas[ing] our knowledge through study and prayer." When Elder Smith came to truly understand the meaning of those principles which he had sung without really thinking about all his life, his actions changed. He began to love scripture study and spent the rest of his mission (and post-mission life) searching out answers to his new-found questions.  In other words, there is a difference between knowing about a doctrine and understanding it, and an even bigger difference between understanding a principle and living it.

This is not a uniquely Mormon phenomenon.  I had a Greek professor in college that used to love catching other Christians (he was one himself, and a devout one at that) speaking in what he called "Church-ese" - parroting biblical phrases which they thought they understood but when pressed, could not give a clear definition. When someone would throw our a Christian buzz word like "justification" or "grace" or "salvation" while translating one of the gospels in class he would simply ask inquisitively "What do you mean by that?" or "Is there a better word for that?"  He caught me from time to time with this approach, and the stutter and awkward silence that would follow these questions usually revealed a chink in my gospel understanding. While a bit embarrassing at the time, I have grown to appreciate these self-revelations in the long-term. (Example: What is charity?  You probably just said the "pure love of Christ."  Does that mean love for Christ? Or the love from Christ? Or the love that he invented?  What makes it pure?  Come to think of it, what does pure mean?  If we don't have charity, does that mean we have tainted love?  How do you have tainted love? Cue the 80's soundtrack).

The doctrinal straw-man

I am going to make a bold statement: all of us, inevitably, believe things which are not true. Right now. We all believe certain things to be true which are not. There are many possible reasons for this.  It may be because we fundamentally misunderstand the meaning of a common, scriptural word.  Or it may be because we had a teacher when we were younger who did not fully understand a particular aspect of the Gospel herself and therefore communicated false doctrine to our impressionable minds.  Or it could be that we were simply not paying enough attention during Primary and misunderstood the lesson being taught.  Alternatively, perhaps the cultural lens through which we are inspecting a particular doctrine prevents us from grasping its true meaning (i.e. the idea that anything that is ritual is cultish and weird), or certain unspoken assumptions about life and society impedes us from contemplating a particular dimension of the plan of salvation (i.e. the belief that darwinian evolution is contrary to creationism).

Whatever the case may be (it will be different for every person), I think God is OK with this so long as we are constantly engaged in the ongoing quest for eternal truths.  As one of my favorite scriptures says: "How long can rolling waters remain impure?  What power shall stay the heavens?  As well might man stretch forth his puny arm to stop the Missouri river in its decreed course, or to turn it up stream, as to hinder the Almighty from pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints." (D&C 121:22)

If our understanding of even the most basic principles of the gospel and the plan of salvation - faith, repentance, the pre-mortal life, judgment, etc. - are not constantly evolving and maturing, we're doing something wrong.  Hyrum Smith once said, "Preach the first principles of the Gospel -- preach them over again: you will find that day after day new ideas and additional light concerning them will be revealed to you.  You can enlarge upon them so as to comprehend them clearly.  You will then be able to make them more plainly understood by those [you] teach."

But while man cannot prevent the Almighty from "pouring down knowledge from heaven upon the heads of the Latter-day Saints" in general, a man can successfully dam his own revelatory process by assuming that he understands it all already.  This can have tragic results.

I have a friend who left the Church, in part, because he was uncomfortable with the "doctrine" that only Mormons could inherit the Celestial kingdom.   I'm not entirely sure how he came to this conclusion, probably a false understanding of D&C 76:74.  He was a returned missionary, married in the temple, etc. but somehow completely missed the point of every lesson about temple work and the Spirit World as expounded in sources like D&C 137 ("all that shall die henceforth without a knowledge of [the gospel] who would have received it if they had been permitted to tarry, shall be heirs of the celestial kingdom of God") and 138, not to mention the parable of the talents. He had an inaccurate understanding of the plan of salvation, and because of that decided that the Church was not true. In other words, because he was disgusted by something that was not true to begin with, he disassociated himself from the Church that was teaching the exact opposite.

This, of course, is not a new phenomenon.  In John 6 we read Christ's famous "bread of life" sermon, where the Savior, after miraculously feeding five thousand listeners with just five loaves of bread and two fishes, announces that eternal life can only be obtained by those who eat him.  Many of his disciples, assuming that he was teaching the importance of cannibalism, said "this is a hard saying, who can hear it?"(John 6:60)  Sadly, John reveals that "from that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." (John 6:66) Are we similarly guilty?  How many of us, misunderstanding key doctrines, have set up doctrinal strawmen, which once destroyed may risk the foundations of our testimonies?  How many of us would have similarly misunderstood the Savior's veiled sermon on faith to be a command to eat people?

Leaving behind the Mormonism that I used to know

Since our understanding of the gospel must be continually evolving, I would like to suggest that true discipleship requires us to jettison and abandon our false beliefs and misunderstandings, whatever they may be, whenever the Lord sees fit to reveal new information to us.  I have to imagine that at least one zealous saint came up to Jesus after his sermon, and said somewhat sheepishly (knife and fork in hand), "OK Lord, I believe.  I'll eat you because I want to go to heaven.  But will you at least give me permission to add a little ketchup?"  While there may be something admirable in such faith, this fictional disciple would have understood the doctrine no better than those who chose to jump ship.  While he may be closer to enlightenment than those who rejected the Savior entirely and chose to ask no questions at all, his path of discipleship will eventually require him to abandon this false belief - however nobly acquired - in cannibalism.  And by coming to the Lord and asking questions, he will correct false understanding and clarify doctrines.  And there is no limit to that promise.

But, abandoning false beliefs can be difficult.  There was a time in my life when I believed that the Word of Wisdom was an eternal law (rather than a principle of promise for the "temporal salvation of all saints in the last days"), and was therefore quite troubled by all those pesky scriptures that suggested that the Savior drank wine. Like many members of the Church, I convinced myself (falsely) that Jesus (and Noah . . . and Abraham . . . and Moroni) were merely drinking unfermented grape juice.  With great zeal (and without knowledge) I Bible bashed with the best of them, convinced that my interpretation was true.

As I grew older (and delved into my religious studies program at UNC), I realized how completely wrong I was.  It took an amazing institute teacher to ween me away from my misinterpretation of scripture.  Sadly, I know of others who have struggled to maintain faith when their loyalty to false doctrine was rightly challenged. The friend who lost his testimony because he refused to believe what he thought was Church doctrine but really wasn't and the friend who lost his testimony because he discovered that his belief in false doctrine was ill-founded are merely experiencing two sides of the same coin. Both stumbled because they refused to constantly perfect their understanding of the gospel principles.

True discipleship requires us to constantly search for a purer understanding of the doctrines of the kingdom, and to accept the further light and knowledge that the Father has promised to send us whenever he chooses to reveal it.  The Lord does not require us to believe anything that is not true, but he does require us to strive to understand the the truth that he has revealed.

Over the next several weeks I will blog about several obstacles that have occasionally prevented me from acquiring and understanding more truth.  These are lessons that have helped me weather the storms of doubt, skepticism, and trials.  Hopefully, they will help some of you as well.