If Any of You Lack Wisdom, Let Him Ask of God: It Is Our Right to Be Secure in the Knowledge that God Lives

 

 

I am reluctant to write about my religion.  There are multiple reasons for this.  I’ve always wanted to be taken seriously as a writer and have succeeded in that to a minor extent among a few writers who have had more success than I have.  These days, other than Buddhism, religion isn’t taken seriously in literary circles.  I guess I’m guilty of desiring to be both of the world and in the service of Christ simultaneously.

But it’s more than that.  I also fear friends will be offended, that they’ll feel I’m trying to convert them, and truth be told, I am.  But it’s not that I feel they are deficient in some way.  It’s just that I want to share what is most important in my life—my religion.

So great is this fear, we had some friends visit a couple of summers ago, and we wanted to take them to Cove Fort, not to share our religion, but just because it’s an awesome old lava-stone fort built around a courtyard and restored beautifully.  In short, it’s something beautiful in our area to see.

However, it’s owned by the church.  When we were asked by the missionary tour-guides if we were all members, I quickly said yes, which was a lie.  The truth is I didn’t want our friends to receive a missionary discussion because I didn’t want them to feel we had taken them to the historic site with ulterior motives in mind.  I would have preferred the old fort to have been a hide-out for Butch Cassidy rather than a frequent stop for Brigham Young.

In The Outsider, Colin Wilson follows a significant portion of the literary development of the twentieth century, in which the narrators and/or protagonists (outsiders) of many literary works have this dreadful secret, which they want to suppress because it will do society no good to learn, but they can’t suppress it because there is a “distressing sense that truth must be told at all costs, otherwise there can be no restoration of order” (Wilson 15).

And what is this truth?:  that existence is meaningless, most succinctly captured in Hemingway’s short story, “A Clean Well-Lighted Place”:

It is the light of course but it is necessary that the place be clean and pleasant.  You do not want music.  Certainly you do not want music.  Nor can you stand before a bar with dignity although that is all that is provided for these hours.  What did he fear?  It was not fear or dread.  It was something that he knew too well.  It was all nothing and a man was nothing too.  It was only that and light was all it needed and a certain cleanness and order.  Some lived in it and never felt it but he knew it all was nada y pues nada y nada y pues nada (Hemmingway 291).

I have felt that sterile night, and have sought the clear light of a clean, well-lit diner to hold off the impending chaos.  So, I’m not here to refute that reality, or to mock those who have stared the void in the eye.

But it is not the only reality I know.

I have another secret, one that is hope, goodness and light.  Oddly, I’m more reluctant to write about that than I am of memories of nothing and for nothing.

But I will be silent no more.

Last weekend I came home from church hurting.  I have an extreme case of epididymitis, an inflammation of the epididymis at the back of the testicle, usually caused by a bacterial infection.  It makes sitting very uncomfortable.

Anyway, I skipped Sunday school, and went back for priesthood.  I was late and just sat down and listened to the lesson.  It was a good lesson, taught by a good friend, and I listened intently but was not particularly moved emotionally.

At the end, I was asked to say the prayer, and I did so.  Part way through, I started to thank God for having the gospel in our lives, and I couldn’t, not because I’m not thankful—it has come to mean everything to me—but because I felt the Holy Ghost so strong I couldn’t speak.  It was as if my tongue had been bound.  I tried three times before I could get it out, and only succeeded on the fourth try.  By that time I was in tears.

When I was finished, before I even knew what I was doing, I rushed over to hug this guy I once knew from the town bar.  Anyone who knows me at all knows that’s just not the sort of thing I do.  I’m shy to the core and physical expression of emotions—even handshakes—just aren’t my sort of thing.

What had happened?  Well, I am thankful for the gospel.  And I haven’t been getting well despite numerous prayers and blessing on my behalf.  It even felt as if I’d been struggling with my testimony, having a few thoughts of “Our nada, who art in nada, nada be thy name” myself  (Hemmingway 291).  So, perhaps my Father in Heaven felt I needed some reassurance that He was there for me.

But, I don’t think so.  I think it was my old drinking buddy who needed to feel the spirit most, and I was the vehicle used to answer his prayers.  That just seems to be the way the priesthood works—not directly, but through others.  He too was crying when I’d finished my prayer.

I want to continue exploring the void explored in Colin Wilson’s The Outsider.  I think it does identify a real phenonemum, and I believe I have some insights into that reality.  But there is not time for that here.

Instead, I also want to testify that life on this earth is not all nada y pues nada.  That God lives and has a plan and purpose for each of us, and that we do not have to know this on blind faith alone, that there are other ways of thinking than logic, and other means of communication than words—and that although we may never know all the pieces of the puzzle to life (to do so would abort free-will),  we are promised by God in James I: 5 that if we sincerely ask of God we can know enough about the meaning of life that we don’t have to make it on faith alone:

If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.

It is our right to be secure in the knowledge (not just belief) that God lives; it is just a matter of being humble and patient enough to receive his reply.

 

 

 

Works Cited

Hemmingway, Ernest. ""A Clean Well-Lighted Place"." Hemmingway, Ernest. The Complete Short Stories of Ernest Hemingway. New York: Book of the Month Club (Scribner's/Macmillan Publishing), 1987. 291.

Wilson, Colin. The Outsider. Los Angeles: J.P. Tarcher, Inc., 1982.