In Matthew 22 Christ teaches about the two great commandments -- to love God with all our heart, mind, and strength; and to love others as we love ourselves.
I often study scriptures the way I would if I were going to teach what I was studying. What popped into my head here, was that I would ask my class, What does it mean to love God with all of you HEART? With all of your MIND? With all of your STRENGTH?
What do you love with your heart? When does the heart get used? I think of the love I feel for friends and family and romantic love. Does my heart feel that same swelling for God?
What do you love with your mind? HOW do you love with your mind? I think this is like a mental affiliation for something. Like intellectually I love beautiful language -- great literature. I delight in words. I also love interesting facts and science and stories so I desire them. These are things my mind loves. Does my mind feel that same hunger for God? Do I seek after and take pleasure mentally in contemplating the Lord?
What do you love with your strength? This one I think can take a lot of different directions. What first came to mind was bodily enjoyments; eating, physical affection, even adrenaline rushes. These are things we love with our bodies. Do we love God as much? I also thought of what we spend our strength on. What we do with ourselves. Do we want to spend our strength on God the most?
I tried to think about these and answer them myself, but I'm more interested in feedback. Since I'm not teaching this lesson to any class anytime soon -- if there's anyone out there with anything to add, I'd appreciate it. Leave me a comment. Tell me what it means to you to love God with all YOUR heart, mind, and strength.
Friday, June 11, 2010
Thursday, June 10, 2010
City Lights
This is one of the most sweet and romantic scenes in movie history.
THE BACKGROUND: (from wikipedia)
THE BACKGROUND: (from wikipedia)
The plot centers around Chaplin's, broke and homeless he runs into a drunken millionaire and talks him out of committing suicide. The millionaire takes to the tramp as his "best friend for life," giving him nice clothes, going to parties and even giving him his Rolls Royce. The tramp meets a poor blind girl whom he sees selling flowers on the street. He falls in love with her and when the girl mistakes him for a millionaire he keeps up the charade.
To keep up the illusion that he is wealthy while the millionaire is traveling abroad in Europe, he gets a job as a street sweeper. The tramp learns that the girl's rent is overdue and she and her grandmother are in danger of being evicted from their apartment. However the Tramp must find a way to raise the $22 overnight after losing his sweeping job. In one of the funniest and most memorable scenes he enters a boxing contest to raise money for the girl, which also fails. Eventually it is a casual gift of one thousand dollars from the returning millionaire which will pay for not only the rent but also an operation for the girl's eyes the Tramp read about in the paper. Unfortunately like many of the tramp's efforts things go wrong and he is mistakenly accused of stealing the money when the millionaire is sober. The tramp manages to get the money to the girl, telling her that he is going away shortly before he is arrested and imprisoned.
Several months later, the tramp has been released, and, searching for the little flower girl...
Sunday, June 6, 2010
Names
Language is naming. Naming is our way of trying to make sense of our world. I think this is why we have given so many names to our God. It's our effort to understand Him.
Elder Holland said "we know that somehow "happiness, heart, love" are not enough to describe the living son of the living God. Those are abstractions, and he is clearly the least abstract being in our lives. so while we must be fully aware of the limitations -- in our lives, in our language, in our ability to comprehend or appreciate -- we still do well to praise Deity by name and in some small way come to know him better by what he says he is."
He has told us Him names in scripture. For this reason I am going to devote some time to studying the names of God. More to follow...
Elder Holland said "we know that somehow "happiness, heart, love" are not enough to describe the living son of the living God. Those are abstractions, and he is clearly the least abstract being in our lives. so while we must be fully aware of the limitations -- in our lives, in our language, in our ability to comprehend or appreciate -- we still do well to praise Deity by name and in some small way come to know him better by what he says he is."
He has told us Him names in scripture. For this reason I am going to devote some time to studying the names of God. More to follow...
Saturday, June 5, 2010
"For Times of Trouble"
I read Elder Jeffrey R. Holland's address For Times of Trouble this morning. I just wandered across his book "However Long and Hard the Road" and this was the first chapter, so I sat down and read it. I'm so grateful that I did. To help you wander across it as well, here is a link to a transcription of the actual talk.
And here are some highlights:
"Remember, (quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald) "Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement -- discouragement has a germ of its own."
To those who are trying hard and living right and things still seem difficult, I say, take hard. Others have walked that way before you. Read Noah again. Go out there and take a few whacks on the side of your ark and see what popularity was like in 2500 B.C.
Does the wilderness stretch before you in a never-ending sequence of semesters? Read Moses again. Calculate the burden of fighting with the pharaohs and then a forty-year assignment in Sinai. Some tasks take time. Accept that. But as the scripture says, “They come to pass.” They do end. We will cross over Jordan eventually. Others have proven it. I stand before you as a living symbol that anyone can make it through school, fill a mission, and find a job.
Are you afraid people don’t like you? The Prophet Joseph Smith could share a few thoughts with you on that subject. Has health been a problem? Surely you will find comfort in the fact that a veritable Job has led this Church into one of the most exciting and revelatory decades of this entire dispensation. President Kimball has known few days in the last thirty years that were not filled with pain or discomfort or disease. Is it wrong to wonder if President Kimball has in some sense become what he is not only in spite of the physical burdens but also in part because of them? Can you take courage from your shared sacrifice with that giant of a man who has defied disease and death, has shaken his fist at the forces of darkness and cried when there was hardly strength to walk, “Oh, Lord, I am yet strong. Give me one more mountain” (see Joshua 14:11–12).
Do you ever feel untalented or incapable or inferior? Would it help you to know that everyone else feels that way too, including the prophets of God? Moses initially resisted his destiny, pleading that he was not eloquent in language. Jeremiah thought himself a child and was afraid of the faces he would meet.
And Enoch? I ask all of you to remember Enoch as long as you live. This is the young man who, when called to a seemingly impossible task, said, “Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, [I] am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech?” (Moses 6:31).
Enoch was a believer. He stiffened his spine and squared his shoulders and went stutteringly on his way. Plain old, ungifted, inferior Enoch. And this is what the angels would come to write of him: And so great was the faith of Enoch that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which God had given him. [Moses 7:13]
Plain old, inadequate Enoch—whose name is now synonymous with transcendent righteousness. The next time you are tempted to paint your self-portrait dismal gray, highlighted with lackluster beige, just remember that in like manner have this kingdom’s most splendid men and women been tempted. I say to you as Joshua said to the tribes of Israel as they faced one of their most difficult tasks, “Sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5)."
------------------------
" You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. That’s another satanic suckerpunch—that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, “I’ll change”—and mean it. Of course there will be problems to work out and restitutions to make. You may well spend—indeed you had better spend—the rest of your life proving your repentance by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as for Alma and the sons of Mosiah. Even if you have serious amends to make, it is not likely that you would qualify for the term, “the vilest of sinners,” which is the phrase Mormon uses in describing these young men. Yet as Alma recounts his own experience in the thirty-sixth chapter of the book that bears his name, his repentance appears to have been as instantaneous as it was stunning.
Do not misunderstand. Repentance is not easy or painless or convenient. It is a bitter cup from Hell. But only Satan, who dwells there, would have you think that a necessary and required acknowledgment is more distasteful than permanent residence. Only he would say, “You can’t change. You won’t change. It’s too long and too hard to change. Give up. Give in. Don’t repent. You are just the way you are.” That, my friends, is a lie born of desperation. Don’t fall for it."
(Go read it all... for me to include anymore, I'd have to include the whole thing!)
And here are some highlights:
"Remember, (quoting F. Scott Fitzgerald) "Trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement -- discouragement has a germ of its own."
To those who are trying hard and living right and things still seem difficult, I say, take hard. Others have walked that way before you. Read Noah again. Go out there and take a few whacks on the side of your ark and see what popularity was like in 2500 B.C.
Does the wilderness stretch before you in a never-ending sequence of semesters? Read Moses again. Calculate the burden of fighting with the pharaohs and then a forty-year assignment in Sinai. Some tasks take time. Accept that. But as the scripture says, “They come to pass.” They do end. We will cross over Jordan eventually. Others have proven it. I stand before you as a living symbol that anyone can make it through school, fill a mission, and find a job.
Are you afraid people don’t like you? The Prophet Joseph Smith could share a few thoughts with you on that subject. Has health been a problem? Surely you will find comfort in the fact that a veritable Job has led this Church into one of the most exciting and revelatory decades of this entire dispensation. President Kimball has known few days in the last thirty years that were not filled with pain or discomfort or disease. Is it wrong to wonder if President Kimball has in some sense become what he is not only in spite of the physical burdens but also in part because of them? Can you take courage from your shared sacrifice with that giant of a man who has defied disease and death, has shaken his fist at the forces of darkness and cried when there was hardly strength to walk, “Oh, Lord, I am yet strong. Give me one more mountain” (see Joshua 14:11–12).
Do you ever feel untalented or incapable or inferior? Would it help you to know that everyone else feels that way too, including the prophets of God? Moses initially resisted his destiny, pleading that he was not eloquent in language. Jeremiah thought himself a child and was afraid of the faces he would meet.
And Enoch? I ask all of you to remember Enoch as long as you live. This is the young man who, when called to a seemingly impossible task, said, “Why is it that I have found favor in thy sight, [I] am but a lad, and all the people hate me; for I am slow of speech?” (Moses 6:31).
Enoch was a believer. He stiffened his spine and squared his shoulders and went stutteringly on his way. Plain old, ungifted, inferior Enoch. And this is what the angels would come to write of him: And so great was the faith of Enoch that he led the people of God, and their enemies came to battle against them; and he spake the word of the Lord, and the earth trembled, and the mountains fled, even according to his command; and the rivers of water were turned out of their course; and the roar of the lions was heard out of the wilderness; and all nations feared greatly, so powerful was the word of Enoch, and so great was the power of the language which God had given him. [Moses 7:13]
Plain old, inadequate Enoch—whose name is now synonymous with transcendent righteousness. The next time you are tempted to paint your self-portrait dismal gray, highlighted with lackluster beige, just remember that in like manner have this kingdom’s most splendid men and women been tempted. I say to you as Joshua said to the tribes of Israel as they faced one of their most difficult tasks, “Sanctify yourselves: for tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you” (Joshua 3:5)."
------------------------
" You can change anything you want to change, and you can do it very fast. That’s another satanic suckerpunch—that it takes years and years and eons of eternity to repent. It takes exactly as long to repent as it takes you to say, “I’ll change”—and mean it. Of course there will be problems to work out and restitutions to make. You may well spend—indeed you had better spend—the rest of your life proving your repentance by its permanence. But change, growth, renewal, and repentance can come for you as instantaneously as for Alma and the sons of Mosiah. Even if you have serious amends to make, it is not likely that you would qualify for the term, “the vilest of sinners,” which is the phrase Mormon uses in describing these young men. Yet as Alma recounts his own experience in the thirty-sixth chapter of the book that bears his name, his repentance appears to have been as instantaneous as it was stunning.
Do not misunderstand. Repentance is not easy or painless or convenient. It is a bitter cup from Hell. But only Satan, who dwells there, would have you think that a necessary and required acknowledgment is more distasteful than permanent residence. Only he would say, “You can’t change. You won’t change. It’s too long and too hard to change. Give up. Give in. Don’t repent. You are just the way you are.” That, my friends, is a lie born of desperation. Don’t fall for it."
(Go read it all... for me to include anymore, I'd have to include the whole thing!)
Wednesday, June 2, 2010
it comes today
C.S. Lewis:
"We take as starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. We then admit that something else -- call it 'morality' or 'decent behavior,' or 'the good of society' -- has claims on this self; claims which interfere with its own desires. What we mean by 'being good' is giving in to those claims. Some of the things the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be what we call 'wrong': well, we must give them up. Other things, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be what we call 'right': well, we shall have to do them. But we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes."
"We are still taking out natural self as the starting point." As long as we are thinking that way, one or other of the two results is likely to follow. Either we give up trying to be good or else we become very unhappy indeed. For, make no mistake: if you are really going to try and meet all the demands made on the natural self, it will not have enough left over to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier. In the end you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, 'live for others' but always in a discontented grumbling way -- always wondering why the other do not notice it more and always making a martyr of yourself. And once you have become that you will be a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish."
"The Christian way is different" "Christ says 'Give me All. I don't so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it No half-measure are any good I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down... I will give you a new self instead, In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours'."
--------
"That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the fist job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other points of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind. We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us."
"We take as starting point our ordinary self with its various desires and interests. We then admit that something else -- call it 'morality' or 'decent behavior,' or 'the good of society' -- has claims on this self; claims which interfere with its own desires. What we mean by 'being good' is giving in to those claims. Some of the things the ordinary self wanted to do turn out to be what we call 'wrong': well, we must give them up. Other things, which the self did not want to do, turn out to be what we call 'right': well, we shall have to do them. But we are hoping all the time that when all the demands have been met, the poor natural self will still have some chance, and some time, to get on with its own life and do what it likes."
"We are still taking out natural self as the starting point." As long as we are thinking that way, one or other of the two results is likely to follow. Either we give up trying to be good or else we become very unhappy indeed. For, make no mistake: if you are really going to try and meet all the demands made on the natural self, it will not have enough left over to live on. The more you obey your conscience, the more your conscience will demand of you. And your natural self, which is thus being starved and hampered and worried at every turn, will get angrier and angrier. In the end you will either give up trying to be good, or else become one of those people who, as they say, 'live for others' but always in a discontented grumbling way -- always wondering why the other do not notice it more and always making a martyr of yourself. And once you have become that you will be a far greater pest to anyone who has to live with you than you would have been if you had remained frankly selfish."
"The Christian way is different" "Christ says 'Give me All. I don't so much of your time and so much of your money and so much of your work: I want You. I have not come to torment your natural self, but to kill it No half-measure are any good I don't want to cut off a branch here and a branch there, I want to have the whole tree down... I will give you a new self instead, In fact, I will give you Myself: my own will shall become yours'."
--------
"That is why the real problem of the Christian life comes where people do not usually look for it. It comes the very moment you wake up each morning. All your wishes and hopes for the day rush at you like wild animals. And the fist job each morning consists simply in shoving them all back; in listening to that other voice, taking that other points of view, letting that other larger, stronger, quieter life come flowing in. And so on, all day. Standing back from all your natural fussings and frettings; coming in out of the wind. We can only do it for moments at first. But from those moments the new sort of life will be spreading through our system: because now we are letting Him work at the right part of us."
Tuesday, May 25, 2010
a steady effort to be true
While reading about the importance of steadfastness, how essential it is to make every possibly efforts to keep our covenants with the Lord, I came across this quote from President Heber J. Grant:
"Nobody lives up to his ideals, but if we are striving, if we are working, if we are trying, to the best of our ability, to improve day by day, then we are in the line of our duty. If we are seeking to remedy our own defect, if we are so living that we can ask God for light, for knowledge for intelligence, and about all for His spirit, that we may overcome our weaknesses, then, I can tell you, we are in the straight and narrow path that leads to life eternal; then we need have no fear." (Conference Report, April 1909)
This came, not only as a confirmation of a doctrine that I already believe -- that it is our efforts that count and not whether or not we are "perfect," but also as clarification.... Because we will inevitably make mistakes, we will inevitably fall off of the path that leads to eternal life... or so I thought. However, this quote from President Grant illustrated to me that IF I can living so that I can ask God for what I need IN ORDER TO overcome weaknesses then I am STILL in the path. My mistakes and the always ongoing-process of repentance lie within the path. (It's like what Robinson was getting at in "Following Christ" -- we only get off the path when we choose to not repent.)
Brigham Young also taught this comforting doctrine. He said: "No matter what the outward appearance is, if I can know of a truth that the hearts of the people are fully set to do the will of their Father in heaven, though they may falter and do a great many things though the weaknesses of human nature, yet, they will be saved." (Journal of Discourses 5:256)
I have done "a great may things through the weaknesses of human nature." At times it seems to surge up and batter at my heart to think of how I've slipped... But it has given my heart new strength to know that because I am, in my soul -- in the deepest part that is me, truly devoted to God, that I will be saved. I am saved. I'm saved because I'm committed to Him. EVERY time I fall I WILL repent and try again. I will spend my whole life falling and hurting and being healed. This is my steady effort to be true to Him and return to His presence.
"Nobody lives up to his ideals, but if we are striving, if we are working, if we are trying, to the best of our ability, to improve day by day, then we are in the line of our duty. If we are seeking to remedy our own defect, if we are so living that we can ask God for light, for knowledge for intelligence, and about all for His spirit, that we may overcome our weaknesses, then, I can tell you, we are in the straight and narrow path that leads to life eternal; then we need have no fear." (Conference Report, April 1909)
This came, not only as a confirmation of a doctrine that I already believe -- that it is our efforts that count and not whether or not we are "perfect," but also as clarification.... Because we will inevitably make mistakes, we will inevitably fall off of the path that leads to eternal life... or so I thought. However, this quote from President Grant illustrated to me that IF I can living so that I can ask God for what I need IN ORDER TO overcome weaknesses then I am STILL in the path. My mistakes and the always ongoing-process of repentance lie within the path. (It's like what Robinson was getting at in "Following Christ" -- we only get off the path when we choose to not repent.)
Brigham Young also taught this comforting doctrine. He said: "No matter what the outward appearance is, if I can know of a truth that the hearts of the people are fully set to do the will of their Father in heaven, though they may falter and do a great many things though the weaknesses of human nature, yet, they will be saved." (Journal of Discourses 5:256)
I have done "a great may things through the weaknesses of human nature." At times it seems to surge up and batter at my heart to think of how I've slipped... But it has given my heart new strength to know that because I am, in my soul -- in the deepest part that is me, truly devoted to God, that I will be saved. I am saved. I'm saved because I'm committed to Him. EVERY time I fall I WILL repent and try again. I will spend my whole life falling and hurting and being healed. This is my steady effort to be true to Him and return to His presence.
Saturday, May 15, 2010
love and devotion
Shakespeare wrote on of the most beautiful demonstrations of the power of love in The Merchant of Venice. Reading Portia's words for her beloved Bassanio may have inspired me in the past to seek out the person I can so freely and joyfully give my whole self to. But with the passing of time, my trials, and some help from outside sources, I've come to see that this description more aptly defines the spirit of love I ought to feel toward my Savior. (After all, the covenant relationship is often compared to a bridegroom and his bride.) This is love that brings obedience, that seeks to focus on the beloved. It is sweet and it is true devotion.
You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am: though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish,
To wish myself much better; yet, for you
I would be trebled twenty times myself;
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;
That only to stand high in your account,
I might in virtue, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account; but the full sum of me
Is sum of something, which, to term in gross,
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised;
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself and what is mine to you and yours
Is now converted: but now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o'er myself: and even now, but now,
This house, these servants and this same myself
Are yours, my lord (Act III, scene II, Lines 150-173)
I pray to be this love and devotion.
(Inspired by S. Michael Wilcox's "House of Glory")
You see me, Lord Bassanio, where I stand,
Such as I am: though for myself alone
I would not be ambitious in my wish,
To wish myself much better; yet, for you
I would be trebled twenty times myself;
A thousand times more fair, ten thousand times more rich;
That only to stand high in your account,
I might in virtue, beauties, livings, friends,
Exceed account; but the full sum of me
Is sum of something, which, to term in gross,
Is an unlesson'd girl, unschool'd, unpractised;
Happy in this, she is not yet so old
But she may learn; happier than this,
She is not bred so dull but she can learn;
Happiest of all is that her gentle spirit
Commits itself to yours to be directed,
As from her lord, her governor, her king.
Myself and what is mine to you and yours
Is now converted: but now I was the lord
Of this fair mansion, master of my servants,
Queen o'er myself: and even now, but now,
This house, these servants and this same myself
Are yours, my lord (Act III, scene II, Lines 150-173)
I pray to be this love and devotion.
(Inspired by S. Michael Wilcox's "House of Glory")
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