Letting Go: This Is It, This Is All I Need

I had a simple, profound realization today:  I am Mormon.  I know technically, I’ve been that since I was baptized at age nine, and as I was born into the covenant, in a more general sense, all my life.

But I did not stay on the path.  I’ve attended church steadily for at least the past fifteen years, and have had a strong testimony for the last five.

But, until this weekend, I don’t think I fully comprehended at a gut level that I believe.  Action and belief can only be separated for so long.

I guess, on some level, I knew I would always come to this place.  Although I definitely like the music of Yusuf Islam better when he was just Cat Stevens, I always understood him choosing his path to God over art, even though I don't share those same beliefs. 

I haven’t had a poem published in over ten years, so I’m not comparing  myself to Cat Stevens.  I clearly don’t have as much to give up, but I felt comfortable with not continuing with my MFA Creative Writing Program even though I was nearly finished because I knew it was drawing me further from where I wanted to be spiritually instead of closer.

But, until this weekend, I was still holding out for my dream—to be a well known writer.

Over the weekend, because of work reasons, we took two different cars to Saint George in order to celebrate  New Year’s and my son’s birthday.

We went to a family game center New Year's Eve to bowl and play games.  I couldn’t do much because I was in pain, so I just found a soft bench to sit on, and as I sat there I had this deep realization, this is it, this is all I need.  Not Fiesta Fun Center.  I’d much rather be in the woods.  But, location doesn’t matter.  I was with family and I knew my son was having a good time, much better than he’s had in a while, due to his own health problems.

What I realized is that this is it, this is all I need had nothing to do with my situation.  It had everything to do with my testimony in the gospel.  Anything else is just extras.

That’s when I truly realized I believe.  I drove home New Year's Day on cloud nine.  The feeling hasn’t left me.  But, as I said earlier, action and belief can only remain separate for so long.

So, I’m pulling a Cat Stevens.  Others might negotiate the worlds between their religious belief and art just fine.  I don’t necessarily think one excludes the other.  I hope not.  I’m certainly glad Bono is both a Christian and a rock star because I love U2.  We need art informed by religion.  But, personally, I do better spiritually when I don’t have to negotiate the gray areas between being an artist and a Mormon.

So, as of today, I’m choosing to focus on what I knew I was here for long before I came to this earth:  to work earnestly on being better.

I’ve always been good at adhering to the judge not least ye be judged part of the gospel, even when I was a drunk wandering the calles of Juarez, Mexico, looking for God in all the wrong places.

But I haven’t always been so keen to adhere to the restrictions—diet, moral, media, etc. placed on members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, but that too is part of the gospel, to live in the world, but not be of the world.

Society tries to write off anyone who strives to live by a higher standard as being judgmental, but that is not true.  Gandhi was not judgmental in refraining from violence;  Martin Luther King was not judgmental in refraining from hate; a vegetarian is not judgmental in refraining from meat.

I am not writing off the world of literature, but from this day forward, I am defining myself first by what I have always known—that I am a child of God, born to fulfill my part in the following scripture:

Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect (Mathew 5:48)

I know I will not obtain that in this lifetime, for I am very far from it, but setting myself upon the right path is not an act of ego, as the world would have me believe; rather it is an act of humility (about the first in my life)—because it is subverting my personal desires for something higher.

And I believe in a higher ground.  My favorite hymn is If You Could Hei to Kolab, which ends as follows:

There is no end to virtue;

There is no end to might;
There is no end to wisdom;
There is no end to light.
There is no end to union;
There is no end to youth;
There is no end to priesthood;
There is no end to truth.
There is no end to glory;

There is no end to love;

There is no end to being;
There is no death above.
There is no end to glory;
There is no end to love;
There is no end to being;
There is no death above.

I know my path towards that elusive, future goal is living the gospel more fully today, which includes saying no to some things, including some works of literature, some trains of thought, and some ways of expressing myself.  That may include, skipping over a poem by a favorite poet, or choosing to not read a post of a friend.  If that is snobbish, so be it.

 

One simply cannot live morally in an immoral world with arms wide open.  Selectivity is a vital part of spiritual growth.

 

As I've always had an overly large ego, and I guess I still do, I'll continue in that vein by associating myself with John Lennon, even though in this case, I'm giving up a dream of a fame I never obtained: