Alma, chapter 42

 This is Alma trying to explain, to his son, Corianton, the justice of God, a justice that sounds so fierce and miserable in Old Testament writings, starting with the casting out of the Garden of Eden (which increased sadness and difficulty for Adam and Eve) and continuing on throughout history, and which seems, to Corianton, to be out of character of a loving God.

Alma starts from the beginning.  His explanation goes something like this:

1st: Adam and Eve.  If they had remained in their original state in the Garden of Eden, where everything was provided, and where there was no death due to the tree of life, there would have been sobering natural consequences?  What would have been some of those?

They would have lived forever, their children and grandchildren and every succeeding generation would have lived forever.  That is unsustainable on earth...beyond its natural resources...shortages of food, overwhelming environmental pollution, etc. etc.    Think about what happens in a society in that situation.

2nd: Powerful, wicked, men and women would never die.  Their destructive, dishonest egregious efforts to maintain power would never end.  They (and we) would never have the sense of mortality that offers us reminders and crucial opportunities to review our lives.  Alma refers to this in verse 5: "having no space for repentance" means having no sense of parameters of lifespan or sense of an end, which parameters serve all of us well in moving us to review our lives and consider how we are using our time and to what ends, and therefore offering opportunities to recognized opportunities to engage in the blessed experience of repentance.  

3rd: Furthermore, not only would powerful, wicked people never die, there would be never ending battles between them and those who wanted to dethrone them or to take their place.  We have enough of those in a mortal life, they would be endless in an immortal wicked world.

Alma refers to such a situation being one in which the word of God becomes void.  Void means "having no legal or binding force; nul; not effectual to bind parties, or to convey or support a right, not sufficient to produce its effect.   Alma is saying that in  such a situation, people who choose wickedness, would not be motivated to repent, but feel free to continually pursue wicked goals without fear of death or any sense of mortal danger. The prophet Isaiah wrote: "My word shall not return to me void, but shall accomplish that which I please". (Isaiah 55:11). A world that includes death, either your own, or of those who are important to you, includes a powerful, and fairly frequent nudge to consider your life, the word of God, and what is most important to you.  A world without death does so far less.

4th: Alma also says that the "great plan of salvation would have been frustrated".  God's whole plan is set up to give us experience that teaches us powerful, personal lessons, helps us see and choose what is most important to us, teaches us how to make changes in order to become all we desire to be, and then to be transformed by glorious resurrection.  

Alma is trying to show Corianton that it is easy to see harshness in God's actions where there is actually a tremendous amount of mercy.

Note: Resurrection doesn't just mean "getting a body back".  It means being "raised with glory", transformed in heavenly ways, empowered to do the good you seek to do in powerful ways.  What kind of glory?  One that reflects, specifically, who you, individually have become and the desires of your heart. (Doctrine and Covenants 88).  (Those who do not wish to do anything good....no glory with your resurrection).

5th: Alma also speaks about what the inevitability of physical death does in a person's life:  It prevents you from living here forever (which most would not prefer once they not only experience the tragedies and violence involved in mortal life) and helps you understand that this life is far from ideal and that post death existence offers far more to us than mortal life does. 

Understanding that, we begin to see that being forever here on earth would cause us to become "lost" (Alma 42:6).  Have you ever become physically lost?  Unable to find your way home, or to the destination at which you set out to arrive?  Becoming lost, in this verse is like that...unable to find your way home to life in the presence of God, which home is joyful to every person who loves goodness.

Corianton, with his father and brothers, has been through a lot (Alma chapter 38), both physically and emotionally, because of his work with his father, trying to teach the word God.  He wonders whether it makes sense to teach about a coming of a Savior far into the future that he is not sure will happen.  And he has made some bad decisions trying to find relief from that insecurity about what he has been asked to do and to teach. 

Alma's words in chapter 42 are his attempt to help his son see that God's response to sin, whether it is Corianton's sin or the sin of Adam and Eve, or anyone else, is not a vindictive assignment to a state of punishment and misery, but rather a reflection of God offering a mortal life that is set up to help us understand and experience the natural, logical, actual consequences of sin (which consequence, is always, ultimately, and naturally, misery) and the consequences of discipleship.

Most of us, consciously, or unconsciously, experience that learning and experience during our lives.  Death, and our awareness of our mortality, is part of the plan to move us out of living amidst what would otherwise be a never ending earthly cycle of power seeking and conflict and violence and struggle, and the misery that such creates if allowed to continue without end.  

The post mortal life, Alma explains, is set up to free us from that awful possibility...putting us in a new, post-moral state; a state where redemption continues to be possible due our desire to repent and change without the encumbrance of a failing, mortal body, which redemption continues to be available to us due to the amazing justice of God and due to the amazing mercy and deliverance from the bondage of our sins, which deliverance the Father and the Son made possible through the latter's atonement for each of us.  

Corianton has been struggling with a misapprehension of the nature of God...seeing Him as a decreer of laws, a promiser of far off personal interaction, and a vindictive dealer out of justice.  When we see God that way we seek consolation elsewhere, which is exactly what Corianton did.  That put Corianton in a reasonable state of mind: feeling antipathy towards God because he thinks that God's motives must be control and punishment for sin (which he, Corianton has engaged in) while, at the same time He claims to be full of love.  Corianton's antipathy, coming from those assumptions, makes total sense.

Corianton has been laboring under the belief that God, by nature is vindictive and harsh, focused on obedience and penalty (justice), in spite of claiming to be a God of love.  His father is trying to help disabuse him from that erroneous assumption by explaining the total incorporation of loving mercy and forgiveness in God's plan from the beginning, made possible by a huge and voluntarily and lovingly given price on the part of both the Father and the Son.  

Verse 1 of Chapter 43 indicates that Coriantion may have found it helpful.

 

Cheering On and Rejoicing from Afar

There have been some videos posted online during this Olympics week that have been fun for me to watch.  

I have enjoyed watching snatches of videos of athletes competing in Tokyo, but what I have enjoyed even more, is watching their families and friends cheer them on from afar.

You can watch and listen to them as they watch during a couple of the recent swim races as well as when the final touch at the side of the pool happens

 Listen to, and catch a glimpse of Ahmed Hafnaoui's family in Tunisia here:  

https://www.msn.com/en-us/sports/olympics/ahmed-hafnaoui-s-family-watching-him-win-gold-is-the-best-moment-of-the-olympics-so-far/ar-AAMAeZN

Lydia Jacoby's family and friends in Alaska here:  

https://fb.watch/v/1Xiacdpqq/

(I am sure that there are hundreds of other groups of family and friends that have or will respond similarly as they watch children and friends that they love... we just happen to only get a glimpse of the families of two gold medal winners...our world tends to focus just on those...)

Any loving parent (we are not including parents who are focused on winning and their child performing exceptionally and/or better than others instead of focusing on loving support) will recognized the joy that comes to us just watching our children engaged in efforts to become better at something and learning and growing and making progress, however great or small, in that process.  

As I watched the interest, support and rejoicing (which I have seen good parents do as they rejoice in their children, of all ages, who are engaged in trying to do something that they are learning how to do, regardless of the level of "performance" attained) I remembered the statement Jesus made after the parable of the poor widow who searches and searches and searches and finally finds the coin she had lost, and then rejoices with her neighbors (who apparently were aware of and concerned as well and likely were encouraging her and then relieved and happy for her) over that find :

"Likewise, I say unto you, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner that repents."

Though I don't think there is any evidence that the angels act specifically the way that those family members and friends in Tunisia and Alaska did, but I have a feeling that the level of cheering on and celebration is at least that high as we engage in our life journeys and work with the Lord in the process of repentance as we embrace His atonement and do become free from a sin that besets us.

Enjoy catching an earthly variation of that cheering on and rejoicing.

James Talmage on the concept of hell

"During this hundred years [since 1830] many other great truths not known before, have been declared to the people, and one of the greatest is that to hell there is an exit as well as an entrance. Hell is no place to which a vindictive judge sends prisoners to suffer and to be punished principally for his glory; but it is a place prepared for the teaching, the disciplining of those who failed to learn here upon the earth what they should have learned. True, we read of everlasting punishment, unending suffering, eternal damnation. That is a direful expression; but in his mercy the Lord has made plain what those words mean. "Eternal punishment," he says, is God's punishment, for he is eternal; and that condition or state or possibility will ever exist for the sinner who deserves and really needs such condemnation; but this does not mean that the individual sufferer or sinner is to be eternally and everlastingly made to endure and suffer. No man will be kept in hell longer than is necessary to bring him to a fitness for something better. When he reaches that stage the prison doors will open and there will be rejoicing among the hosts who welcome him into a better state." James E Talmage - CR1930Apr:95-97

"And deny yourself of all ungodliness"

My friend, F. asked a question about the meaning of that phrase. It caused me to look more carefully at Moroni, chapter 10.  I think looking at the verses surrounding that verse in this chapter is helpful.  Thanks, F., for asking the question.

Verse

30—come unto Christ, (learn his word, watch and emulate his ways, seek his will and follow it with His kind of love) seek every good gift (all those gifts listed in verses 8-21 and more—given to various of his children—recognize them in each other. Recognize them in you.  Work together with those gifts)

31—arise from the dust (don’t believe that you are worthless nor only capable of insignificant, unworthy actions and situations)  and put on thy beautiful garments (rise to who God sees you as; his beloved and noble child, sent on an arduous journey) and strengthen thy stakes (strengthen your knowledge of and commitment to the most basic principles of the gospel, to which everything else is tied—love of God and of fellow men) and enlarge thy borders (catch a greater vision of the expansiveness, clarity  and inclusiveness of the gospel of Christ) forever (this is an eternal process, not a one and done) that the covenants of the Eternal Father which he hath made unto thee (do you know what those covenants are?  Pre-mortal? Abrahamic?  Baptismal? Temple?  Likely all four) may be fulfilled.

32—Yea, come unto Christ  (see above) and be perfected in Him (learning his word, watching and emulating his ways, and seeking his will, and following it with His kind of love for God and others is the process of becoming whole and perfect.  See also the paragraph that is Matthew 5:43-48) and deny yourself of all ungodliness (as you go through this process of learning good, you will also go through a process of learning what is not good…as you recognize those, repent—change what you love—to reflect that learning); and if you shall deny yourself of all ungodliness (repent, change what you love as you recognize things in your life that are not good and in accordance to his ever-loving will) and love God with all your might, mind and strength (sometimes it takes that amount of love  of God to get us out of sins we love to indulge in) then is His grace (grace: His ready, powerful, willingness to help us) sufficient for you (enough) that by his grace (that, due to His ready, powerful, willingness to help you and your willingness to receive that help) ye may be perfect in Christ (we are able to come to love the Father, all men and every good thing as He does and respond as He does); and if by the grace of God ye are perfect in Christ, ye can nowise deny the power of God (and if you go through this process of welcoming God’s powerful help in your efforts to repent and to become more loving and willing to work with the Father as Christ is, you will become a person who personally has experienced and KNOWS the power of God.)

33 If  ye, by the grace of God (if, through receiving His ready, powerful help throughout in your life and in the life to come, I might add) you  are perfected in Him (continue this process of discipleship  of coming unto Christ,–loving as He does, knowing first hand His power and increasing in comprehension of His ways and embracing those)  then are ye sanctified (made holy—more like God in purpose and understanding) by the grace of God (sanctification, holiness, is not something we can do on our own, it requires that we open ourselves to God’s ready willingness to help and embrace working with Him and repenting and receiving his help) through the shedding of the blood of Christ (repentance that completely erases the sins we are trying to deny ourselves is only possible because of Christ’s atonement for us), which is the covenant of the Father unto the remission of your sins (Christ’s atonement is a covenant that the Father made with us before we came here.  He promised us a savior that would provide a way for our sins to be remitted) that ye become holy (sanctified, more like He is) without spot (cleansed from sin)

For the natural man is an enemy to God, Mosiah 3:17-21

I woke up thinking about some of the things that “so easily beset” us in general and, of course, me in particular, thwarting our personal discipleship.

When, as a teenager, I first read “For the natural man is an enemy to God...unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, full of love....” I thought about the temptations that I, personally, was most aware of amongst myself and my peers: judgmentalism, arrogance, unkindness, cliquishness, sexual promiscuity, foul language, substance abuse, dishonesty, etc.

Today I woke up mulling over the questions of what are some of the temptations that thwart some of us who have been attempting discipleship for a much longer period of time than I had been back then.  And then reviewing my own life identify some of those at play in my own daily interactions and decisions.

Some of the pitfalls that I think we face at this stage of discipleship:

Focus on screens, audio-visual media, or the printed word instead of on the people around us

Valuing efficiency more than taking careful time to accomodate requests, requirements, or others’ needs

Retreat into solitude when there is good work to be done

Self-consciousness instead of other-consciousness in formal and informal meetings

Focus on results instead of process

Measuring our worth by how well we are listened to or how insightful we are perceived to be

Giving answers more than we ask questions

Finding greater satisfaction and sense of worth in leadership than in serving in less noticed capacities

Fear

Placing our trust in financial gain

Listening to those in power or in leadership roles more than we do to those who are not

Focusing on failures in our own performance rather than on gratitude for grace

Again, the scriptural admonition to seek to become “submissive, meek, humble, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict” by coming “to a [better] knowledge of the Savior” seems like a good way for me to start making better headway against those.

Berating ourselves. Finding fault with others

Berating ourselves over our failures or constantly stressing over our imperfections may stir us to increase our efforts to improve, but they do so at a great cost, not only to our anxiety levels, but also to our relationships with others.

Learning to be at peace with our imperfections and failings (understanding the ongoing nature of repentance or the limits of our physical lives) along our journey to become wiser and better is key to our ability to avoid being judgmental or annoyed at the imperfections and failings of those around us who are basically trying to do good. That peace with self allows us to work with them with appreciation for their efforts rather than distress at their failures and imperfections; their inability to rise to our hoped for standard of behavior.

Certainly there are some people whose judgmentalism is founded in arrogance. But most of us who hope to become good and kind but who instead, are judgmental, are so not due to a sense of superiority, but from a habit that started with mentally berating and harshly judging ourselves.

I believe that one key to discipleship and avoiding the sin and distress of judgmentalism is gentleness towards both yourself and others as you seek to do good.

"Giving no offence in any thing, that the ministry be not blamed: But in all things approving ourselves as the ministers of God, ...By pureness, by knowledge, by longsuffering, by kindness, by the Holy Ghost, by love unfeigned..". 2 Corinthians 6:4,6

Shuv. Metanoeo

L. and I were talking about the Hebrew and Greek words translated as "repent" in the Old and New Testaments this morning.  "Shuv", the most commonly found one in the O.T., means to turn, return, or come back.  "Metanoeo" can be described as a change of mind, thought, or thinking, a turning back to the Lord that changes our very essence.

We talked about how repentance is seen as a coming back to God, or a refocus on our merging our will with His, or a turn to his grace.  And L. mentioned that it occurred to him that the same sort of healing process starts to happen not only as we turn towards God and away from our own sins, but also as we turn our minds towards God and away from the sins of those whose sins have caused us immense pain as well.

Jesus said "In the world you shall have tribulation".  And we do.  Even he himself could not escape the pain and sorrow the world was to give him.

Wayne Muller  pointed out in his writings that the thing is that, rather than fully acknowledge and accept that pain and sorrow, when it comes, as part of mortal life that takes place in the time it happens, we instead habitually seek to name or blame the ones whose sin "caused" us this or that particular pain.  Or, if we feel guilty about blaming that person, we subconsciously find other actions done by other people to blame for the pain we feel--as if it weren't for them and the stupid things they do or did, we wouldn't be dealing with this pain and its attendant sorrow.

Sin is one thing that may be assignated as perpetrated by an individual.  But pain is independent of that.  Pain just is. It is  something that blows through our lives and opens great depths of emotion. And it "is" in the life of each individual, sinner or sinned against, innocent or guilty, malicious or clueless, independent of the side or position taken in any conflict or relationship in any area of life. Removing our focus from the sin committed against us or against those we love--removing the notion that our pain was caused by that sin-- and understanding that the sin and the pain we feel are two independent things, allows us to see our pain face to face, accepting it for what it is and begin to truly grieve, which softens the pain and starts to allow us to let go.  

Our challenge is simply to let what was true be true: We were hurt. It was real. What we needed, and hoped for and longed for was not there. When we simply and independently acknowledge the deep sadness of that loss, the pain and/or the loneliness, when we simply grieve over deeply painful experiences without "if onlys" or "whys", but just fully face, name and acknowledge the hurt and pain we feel we are on the way to closing the story and healing and "turning back" (shuv) to the sense of life with God and changing [metanoeo] the core of our being.. 

Years ago I served as moral support for a friend in group therapy sessions she was participating in to deal with childhood abuse.  I learned the value of naming the pain.  It seems that just as "repenting" (shuv, matanoeo) of sin requires naming that sin clearly and fully without blaming others or casting blame on your circumstances, so does turning and transforming from pain require naming our pain, clearly and fully, without blaming others or their actions or seeking to name the reasons "why".  

It is when we name our pain, independent of the actions of others, divorced from the blaming (logical or diverted) we've married it to, and bring that to God, that we have turned to him with what he can heal in us.   All souls can be healed by His power. All pain can be soothed. In Him, we can “find rest unto [our] souls.” Our mortal circumstances may not immediately change, but our pain, worry, suffering, and fear can be, slowly and surely, swallowed up in His peace and healing balm.  But we must know, speak and bring that pain by itself..

And that turning to Him with the fully named pain, without its being attached to anything else, is what starts us on the path to freedom from the past, letting go of our rancor or anxiety and pain, free to be born fresh into this moment, slowly but surely increasingly unencumbered by our endless struggles with past stories and able to see the now more clearly.  It does not mean that we will not be sad anymore or ever again.  It will just mean that we are on your way to becoming people for whom sadness grief and pain have become the author of greater understanding and peace and universal in our life instead of the author of misery and anxiety and a troubled mind.

Ette Hillesum, a holocaust survivor, wrote:

And you must be able to bear your sorrow: even if it seems to crush you, you will be able to stand up again, for human beings are so strong, and your sorrow must become an integral part of yourself; you musn't run away from it.
...Give your sorrow all the space and shelter in yourself that is its due, for if everyone bears grief honestly and courageously, the sorrow that now fills the world will abate.  


There's a helpful exercise and meditation to consider HERE, on pp 13-17, if you are interested.

Meeting Up with Cleopus, another disciple and Peter, Luke 24

"It was Mary Magdalene, and Joanna, and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.
 "And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.

 "Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulchre; and stooping down, he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.

"And, behold, two of them went that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was from Jerusalem about threescore furlongs....

"And  [after their encounter with Jesus on the road to Emmaus] they rose up the same hour, and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven gathered together, and them that were with them,

Saying, The Lord is risen indeed, and hath appeared to Simon."

Two things I notice.  

First is that one of the disciples on the road is named in the text: "Cleopas".  The other is not.  Cleopas' name appears once more in the book of John in chapter 19:  “Now there stood by the cross of Jesus his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary, the wife of Cleopas, and Mary Magdalene.”

The commas make the distinction of individuals not perfectly clear but it is likely 4 women that are referred to here:

Mary the mother of Jesus

Her sister

a woman named Mary who is designated by her relationship (wife) to Cleopas

Mary Magdalene

If not it could be five:

Mary the mother of Jesus

her sister

another Mary 

the unnamed wife of Cleopas

Mary Magdalene

These four (or five) women are mentioned as having been present for the crucifixion.

On the third day after the crucifixion we find Cleopas heading to Emmaus.  Some scholars think it may well have been his wife with whom he was traveling home on that journey and who hurried back with him to Jerusalem to deliver the good news.  If so, add her to the women who loved him and mourned him and to whom He showed himself and conversed after his resurrection.

Second, the disciples greet the two disciples with the news that yes, they've heard.  Simon [Peter] has seen him too.

That's one interaction that we don't have recorded.  We have records of Jesus interaction with Mary Magdalene, and the two disciples on the road to Emmaus, and, later, with 10 of the apostles, and still later, with Thomas, but not this one with Simon Peter.

His interaction with Simon Peter, if added chronologically to this list, would probably be number 2 or number 3.  

This Simon Peter, who was, most likely, still wracked with guilt about and deeply repentant of his three-time denial of affiliation with Jesus and who had made the trip back to the empty tomb (with John in John 20) desperately hoping against hope that the story the women told might be true.

Jesus decision to spend time with Simon Peter so soon after His return says much. I believe, about His compassionate, forgiving, helpful, connected response to an individual who feels deeply the remorse for his temporary abandonment of his connection with the Savior and who loves Him and deeply wishes there were some way to be with Him again.

What is this, thou hast done?

I have learned that clearly articulating past events is essential to my ability to repent, to forgive and to move forward

If I do not write down or speak my innocent mistakes as well as my on-purpose sins, I do not face them.  I may try to make myself believe that simply my cognizance of them is sufficient to be a true catalyst for change, but, I have learned that for me such is insufficient.  By not speaking them I can pretend that they are taken care of, or not important, or sufficiently addressed.  But in reality  I must fully face them and speak them in order to truly learn and make the necessary changes in my life and move on to a better way of living.

If I do not articulate the sins against me, I do not know them well enough to fully forgive them.  I may try to make myself believe that because I choose not to dwell on them, I have forgiven and that is enough. But I have learned that I must fully write or speak them in order to see the damage they did as well as see them for what they are and what they are not.  And it is only when I see them fully that I can begin to fully forgive those who sinned and hand that pain up to God.

I am not always ready to articulate either of those.  It takes honesty and courage and vulnerability, more, sometimes, than I have at the time.  But with time and distance, persistence, and faith in Christ's love and willingness to take me under his wing, I can arrive there as needed.

Which gives me a new perspective on God's questions to Adam and Eve, "Who told thee?",  "Hast thou...?",  and "What is this thou hast done?"

Painting by Lucas Cranach der Altere, 1472-1553

God obviously already knew what had happened and what they had done.  Why, then, would He ask?  I believe it is because He already knew something that I have learned, that articulating a past action is a crucial step towards learning and change.  And certainly both Adam and Eve were facing an imminent need to be prepared for both.  Giving them the opportunity to articulate what had happened and what they had done was a blessing.

And if God was asking the question with the intent of assisting them to be better prepared for the changes that were coming, I believe also that the words he spoke about briars and thistles and sweat and sorrow and childbearing were not words of cursing or punishment, but rather words of instruction (severely edited in the extant versions) and education, preparing them for the changes that would occur in their newly telestial world (as he said, "for thy sake", facilitating their future growth) as well.

Insight from L.

 Jesus and Satan are polar opposites in the following way:

Satan does all he can to minimize the gravity and seriousness of sin and, when you do sin, does all he can to persuade you that you are horrible and/or seriously lacking, are a lost cause and declares that now, for you, there’s no way you really ever can come to complete reconciliation with God.

Jesus, on the other hand, is totally honest about the gravity, darkness and seriousness of sin and, when you do sin, does all he can to persuade you that you are known and loved, knows certainly that you are not a lost cause, provides a universally accessible way for you to become truly completely reconciled with God and has the power to make it so.