God is in the room

I read a short essay by Jill Carattini, an editor of A Slice of Infinity at Ravi Zacharias International Ministries and I wanted to write about it here.

She begins by telling the story of picking up a dictionary to look up a word and being "stopped in [her] tracks by a piece of paper that fell out."

In his familiar mechanical script (block lettering and always in pencil) my dad had carefully scratched a word on a torn off corner of paper. His handwriting immediately caught my eye, but it was he himself that seemed to leap off the page. I had forgotten the dictionary was even his, landing on my shelves posthumously. But I was immediately filled with a sense of somber mystery: What was he up to? Why was this word on his mind? Did he hear it somewhere and quickly scribble it down to look up later? Was he researching something or was he just curious? His thoughts, however ordinary they may have been, seemed wonderful, fueled by the sense that I was somehow on his trail; or at least a trail he had once been on. The word was one I'd never heard before. As I looked it up, it felt as if he was peering over my shoulder.

I have been stopped in my tracks similarly by the presence of God. Like a forgotten slip of paper that lands in my hands, God's handwriting suddenly appears in unlikely places, reminding me of the Spirit's presence, the Son's hand in a difficult situation. These are the kind of moments that wake me up. Stumbling across evidence that God is in the room, spaces in my minds long anesthetized by sin or stuff or self are given a sobering thought: God is here, and I didn't even know it.

I have also been stopped in my tracks by the sudden awareness of God's presence. Often it comes as I reflect on the circumstances of my life, the way things fell into place -- or fell apart so that they could later fall together. I see God in "coincidences" and serendipity and good "luck" -- and I've come to rely on the way He manifests himself to me through these things as one of the guiding forces in my decision making. 

It's the times that He reminds me that He is in control, when things work out in unexpected or undesired ways, that I am forced to step back and look for what He is trying to teach me, what it is He wants me to do and become. He is always there, always shaping; "But now, O Lord, thou art our father; we are the clay, and thou our potter; and we all are the work of thy hand" (Isaiah 64:8).

I am realizing that it is the accumulations of those experiences, of recognizing God's presence in my life and feeling His Spirit in my heart that keeps me secure in my faith. 

D&C 121:45 mentions our "confidence wax[ing] strong in the presence of God." In her essay Carattini references the account in Genesis of Jacob's dream explaining that, "When Jacob awoke from his sleep, he thought, 'Surely the LORD is in this place, and I was not aware of it.' Then he was afraid and said, 'How awesome is this place! This is none other than the house of God; this is the gate of heaven.' In a desperate place, the faith of his fathers' became his own." And Elder Bednar explained in a conference address that "the Lord’s tender mercies are the very personal and individualized blessings, strength, protection, assurances, guidance, loving-kindnesses, consolation, support, and spiritual gifts which we receive from and because of and through the Lord Jesus Christ" and that "we should not underestimate or overlook the power of the Lord’s tender mercies. The simpleness, the sweetness, and the constancy of the tender mercies of the Lord will do much to fortify and protect us in the troubled times in which we do now and will yet live."

Ending her essay, Carattini states:

In one word, I was reminded that my father, whose absence is often the mark I see most clearly, has left his signature throughout my life, in this case literally. How much more so God moves through our lives...pursuing us through sin and selfishness, longing for us to see the evidence that God is in the room.

some thoughts about teaching

This past Sunday I taught the lesson for Sunday School, or as was aptly put by someone clever who attended the lesson I "tricked the class" into thinking I taught the lesson.

^This didn't bother me because to a degree, it was true! The lesson was on "the war chapters" of the Book of Mormon, i.e. that cluster of chapters in Alma about the many battles between the Nephites and Lamenites. I knew that in order to teach a good lesson on these chapters I'd really have to dig in and thoroughly research not only the chapters themselves but backstory and commentary. It would have been a very beneficial study (and one I intend on embarking on soon) but it wasn't one I was in a position to begin given my time constraints (I was asked to teach less than a week before) and my busy schedule. So I decided to take "the easy way out" and let the class teach the lesson, i.e. ask a question and have them read and discuss their answers. This is a technique I often used when I was teaching English because:

1. I've always believed that asking good questions makes a good lesson, so just making the lesson all questions wasn't a huge leap.
2. I am a big fan of the collaborative learning i.e. group "meaning-making" that comes from good questions + discussion. 
3. I really believe that trusting the class to make meaningful insights and having the courage to let them propel the discussion (with a little steering from the teacher to keep things on track) can really make for a dynamic lesson. 
4. It's less work (I am not advocating less work! The more effort you put into study the better off you are, and in gospel teaching more effort on your part means you open yourself up to inspiration and direction from the Spirit in your lesson. I am just saying that sometimes, if context demands it, this is a way to still make the most of a teaching opportunity). 

It works really well for gospel lessons because in means taking the scriptures (THE SOURCE) and using them to answer "our questions" and draw parallels to modern life. So, I started the class explaining that the war chapters are a great resource for understanding how to handle conflict in a Christlike way and that they set a pattern for us -- and that was going to be the focus of the lesson. This was to set the tone/get their minds thinking along the lines of what I ultimately wanted to accomplish with the lesson (That's right! I always have a objective in mind, helps me focus things and hopefully promote a valuable change). So with that goal in mind, I proceeded to have them read groups of versus that illustrated principles "that governed the attitudes and actions of the righteous Nephites in times of war" (from the lesson manual) and asked them to LOOK FOR those principles and then discuss how they each could "apply these principles in dealing with conflict in [their] personal lives" (also from the lesson manual).

So they identified the principles, they applied them, and they thereby created the content for the class in their small groups. All I had to do from that point was open it up for discussion and continue to ask questions to stimulate comments (not the easiest thing, but I think the trick is to actually listen to comments and then respond as if just you and that person were talking together).

So, even though I was "the teacher" it was definitely the class that taught the lesson (and I learned a LOT). It required little of me preparation-wise, or as the class facilitator (I use that word purposefully there), but I felt that it went really well. It's a technique I would love to see more teachers use (especially introverts like me) which is why I decided to write this post. Hopefully I'll be able to share what I've learned about teaching to someone who can use it too!

Schools of Love

Martin Luther, with prophetic perception, wrote, “Marriage is the school oflove”—that is, marriage is not the home or the result of love so much as the school (England 3).

I have been thinking about the "schools of love" that we can belong to.

Marriage is definitely one where we have to learn to let go of our self-interest and turn to selfless and self-giving love. As I have posted about before, it is an opportunity to learn Godly love.

But there are other schools I want to discuss...

I am a member of a wonderful caring family. One where I have had to learn to be sensitive to the feelings and desires of others and where I have found incredible joy in serving and easing the burdens of those I love.  In a good family we can learn "faith, prayer, repentance, forgiveness, respect, love, compassion, work" and wholesome ways to enjoy the company of others (Family). And in a difficult one we can learn patience, long-suffering, understanding. We are all blessed to come into families that will teach us lessons of no-strings-attached-because-we're-family-love. It is a powerfully binding love, similar to the kind that God has for us, that does not change no matter what we do/who we are. It is love that grows from intimately knowing. (1 Sam. 16:7)

To learn to love defines us as children of Christ. "We are created in the image of our heavenly parents; we are God’s spirit children. Therefore, we have a vast capacity for love—it is part of our spiritual heritage" and God has designed and designated the family as part how we learn to become like him, through love (Uchtdorf). He also organized the church to do this.

We belong to the true church, where "there are constant opportunities for all to serve, especially to learn to serve people we would not normally choose to serve—or possibly even associate with—and thus opportunities to learn to love unconditionally. There is constant encouragement, even pressure, to be “active”: to have a calling” and thus to have to grapple with relationships and management, with other peoples ideas and wishes, their feelings and failures; to attend classes and meetings and to have to listen to other people’s sometimes misinformed or prejudiced notions and to have to make some constructive response; to have leaders and occasionally to be hurt by their weakness and blindness, even unrighteous dominion; and then to be made a leader and find that you, too, with all the best intentions, can be weak and blind and unrighteous. Church involvement teaches us compassion and patience as well as courage and discipline. It makes us responsible for the personal and marital, physical, and spiritual welfare of people we may not already love (or may even heartily dislike), and thus we learn to love them. It stretches and challenges us, though disappointed and exasperated, in ways we would not otherwise choose to be— and thus gives us a chance to be made better than we might choose to be, but ultimately need and want to be" (England 4).

It makes sense that love is the "greatest" commandment (Matt. 22:37-40). And so it makes sense that God would bless us through the grace of the "schools of love" to learn in every way possible to keep that commandment, to love as freely and powerfully as He loves us.

How clearly the Savior spoke when He said that every other commandment hangs upon the principle of love. If we do not neglect the great laws—if we truly learn to love our Heavenly Father and our fellowman with all our heart, soul, and mind—all else will fall into place (Uchtdorf).

Unlikely Narratives by Margaret Manning

READ THIS: Today's Slice: Unlikely Narratives by Margaret Manning

"As I place myself in the narrative, I hear an invitation broad enough, wide enough, and good enough to include even me; it also reaches out and welcomes those I might not expect and bids me to serve alongside. It challenges me to leave my preconceptions behind, as the door to the kingdom of God swings open to fellow sinners who will become saints. And it ushers us in a community of new allegiances, a body only God could create and a story too good and too true."

losing

Years ago I read a short story by Orson Scott Card called "Mortal Gods" and the premise of it has never quite left my mind. 

In this short story, aliens peacefully arrive on Earth looking for the one thing they can never have: death. Because the aliens reproduce via mitosis each contains the memories of their predecessors. To them, human death is a miracle. One human, the elderly Mr. Crane, tries to convince the aliens that death is ugly and not worth fetishizing ("I'm about to die, and there's nothing great about it") but no matter what he says, they persist in seeing death as beautiful. The aliens insist that humans' "lives are built around death, glorifying it. Postponing it as long as possible, to be sure. But glorifying it. In the earliest literature, the death of the hero is the moment of greatest climax." Finally, Crane visits the aliens right as he's about to die, to show them how ugly death is — but they find it more beautiful than ever (source).

So when I happened to read this quote from the Japanse novel Kafka on the Shore the other day, I thought of this short story again: 

“Every one of us is losing something precious to us. Lost opportunities, lost possibilities, feelings we can never get back again. That’s part of what it means to be alive” (source). 

So much of our ability to REALLY LIVE stems from the fact that we die, that we lose, and that we must to learn to appreciate all that we will inevitably be incapable of keeping. The prospect of loss does not detract from our experience of life and love but instead serves to intensify it. 

How many times have I had "that moment" -- of knowing this cannot last and wanting to fiercely hold on while I can, trying to consciously to savor it as much as possible...

And it all got me thinking about what Lehi taught about the purpose of life:

And to bring about his eternal purposes in the end of man, after he had created our first parents, and the beasts of the field and the fowls of the air, and in fine, all things which are created, it must needs be that there was an opposition; even the forbidden fruit in opposition to the tree of life; the one being sweet and the other bitter (2 Ne. 2:15).

Opposition is at the heart of how God intends for us to experience life and to learn. Loss is at the center of what it means to really possess -- and death is what defines life. We truly "taste the bitter that [we] may know to prize the good" (Moses 6:55).

As my life continues forward I have become more and more aware of what I am losing -- which carries with it a sadness... but that awareness of loss also seems to enable me to more fully love and live, another form of grace.

DOUBT (quote)

"...the Christian does not live by simply depending upon feelings. While feelings are important, they do not tell us what is real. They supplement the other facets of how God has made us as humans. The Christian worldview is a joining of heart, soul, mind, and strength to Father, Son, and Spirit. God is loved not just with emotions, but also with all bodily faculties, the will, and the mind."

"...while we are often hard on Thomas in our memory of him as the doubter, he is to be commended because he doubted so that he could believe. It was not a doubt that was destructive, but a doubt that led to a faith that would not fail him. A blind faith would not satisfy him; Thomas wanted to truly believe. Far from a troubling and shameful secret, doubt can be a gift. Where doubt leads us to investigate, God may well be leading, the Spirit enabling us to respond like Thomas to the evidence provided by the risen Jesus—with surrender: My Lord and my God."

-Cyril Georgeson

discernment i.e. christian decision making

I just finished reading Discerning the Will of God: An Ignatian Guide to Christian Decision Making by Timothy M. Gallagher OMV which was recommended to me by a friend. The ideas in the text are based in the methodology of Ignatius of Loyola and illustrated by various stories drawn from real life - from various people's efforts to make decisions guided by the will of God. 

It was definitely written for a Catholic audience, and some of the language and ideas weren't the most accessible to someone like me who is fairly unfamiliar with Catholicism. However, it was nonetheless a very moving book and I definitely felt the urge to make note of various concepts and suggestions. 

I want to turn my will to God -- to do His will faithfully and consistently but the process of learning to discern what His will IS and then resolutely making decisions isn't easy. It takes a lot of effort on our part and a strong desire to do God's will WHATEVER it may be. But it isn't all on us, Gallagher explains that discernment = human effort + God's grace. "Grace gives us courage to make our best effort to discern" and to hope w/a surety that God will guide that effort (134). 

Discernment can become "a way of living the choice" that emerges from the process -- the grace "isn't just the clarity of the past but a gift that shapes the entire living of the choice" (138).

Here are some of the profound suggestions Gallagher outlines to help us discern God's will:

• Research well the options and gain the understanding necessary to consider the advantages/disadvantages - be sure to ask yourself if they are faith based reasons i.e. do you desire the end to which each choice is the means: to love God, promote his glory and progress towards him?
• Pray for equilibrium and the gift of a mind that sees clearly with the will to follow - consider your choice in a tranquil time and make sure you are open to either option, whichever is God's will.
• Consider sharing your efforts with a spiritual guide.
• Ask yourself: What would I choose for someone I love and desire spiritual growth for? How would I counsel them in this situation?
• Continually seek God's help in prayer and when you have made a choice, bring it to Him for confirmation. (pgs 108 & 119)

It is a hard process of yearning, searching, asking, and praying - and can take a long time - but this is all for a reason. Thru the process God helps us not only to do His will for us, which leads us to the greatest peace happiness, but to grow closer to him and to "finally know and believe" that he loves us (134).