Gratitude: Contentment in the Midst of Conflict (Alma 34: 38, The Book of Mormon; John 8: 3-12, Holy Bible)

Tomorrow I will be speaking during the church service at the county jail, which I'm very excited about.  The topic is gratitude.  Here is the talk I wrote out in preparation, which I do so that I have done my part.  It is not the talk I will be giving.  I don't use notes.  When speaking in church, I think it's important to leave space for the spirit to speak to those that need it most (usually myself.)  An overly planned talk can get in the way of that.  But I record it here for my children and grandchildren.  Enjoy.

“Let gratitude be the pillow upon which you kneel to say your nightly prayer. 

And let faith be the bridge you build to overcome evil and welcome good.” 

― Maya Angelou, Celebrations: Rituals of Peace and Prayer

This is the second talk I've been asked to give on gratitude, and I'm not asked to speak often, so, clearly there is something I am to learn here that I'm not getting.   Consistency, would be my guess.  I am plenty grateful when everything is going my way, but tend to, like so many, throw tantrums (sometimes internally, sometimes externally), when an obstacle is tossed in the way. True gratitude is not based on circumstance.  It is a reverence for the entire experience of being, trials and all.

We all have obstacles.  God gave us life as an obstacle course.  Or maybe he just gave us life, and we perceive it as an obstacle course.   Either way, everyone in this life is on a separate journey.  Other than the love of God, nothing is equal.  Some are born into wealth; some are born into poverty. Some are born to good families; some are victims of abuse.  Some have good health; others live life in pain.  Some are born into democracies; others live under political oppression.  Some have good fortune; others endure one tragedy after another. Sometimes pain comes as a natural consequence; other times not.

So, who am I to speak on gratitude?  Who is anyone?  It's easy to preach an open heart when life is blossoming before you; it's not so easy listen when being devoured by strife.

However, it seems to me that gratitude that will not endure conflict is not gratitude at all.  It's simply the ego enjoying momentary false evidence that the ground beneath us is stable.  True happiness then cannot be built on circumstance.  Its foundation must sink into bedrock more substantial than the material world, which is always in flux.

But how do we find gratitude in the midst of pain or despair?  I've dealt with a lot of physical pain over the past year, and I'd be lying, if I said I was always grateful.  So, this is something I'm working on.  But, I've found a scripture that I think, if we follow it, will drive the pilings down into the bedrock and anchor us to something that isn't temporary.

That ye contend no more against the Holy Ghost, but that ye receive it, and take upon you the name of Christ; that ye humble yourselves even to the dust, and worship God, in whatever place ye may be in, in spirit and in truth; and that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you (Alma 34: 38, The Book of Mormon).

When two of my boys were to be baptized, I was asked to say either the opening or closing prayer at the meeting (I don't remember which), but I didn't feel worthy, so I prayed about it before hand.  I received what to me felt like a clear answer, not so much a voice, but a thought planted in my head that was not my own.  In my mind, I heard these actual words:  "You are not worthy, but say the prayer anyway."

The impression was strong enough that I felt comfortable saying the prayer.  During that prayer, I had a feeling come back to me that I had long forgotten, a feeling that had slipped away so slowly that I hadn't even noticed it was gone.  I'd simply learned to accept a numb feeling, a void, a constant unhappiness even at what should be the most joyful moments in my life.  I'd completely forgotten that as a child I was generally happy.  It rushed in with great force, and I just had this inner awareness--I am happy.  It was so strong, I was on cloud nine for a couple of weeks until I became use to it.  It felt like when you first fall in love without all the worries of "Does she really like me?"  I knew my Heavenly Father loved me profoundly.  With the return of the Holy Ghost, there was no question about that.

Over the years, I had contended against the Holy Ghost by not following the commandants and over time had lost my connection to the joy the Holy Ghost brings.  For me, it is pretty hard to have gratitude on a daily basis without the assistance of the Holy Ghost.  If I'm not living my religion to the best of my ability, small troubles become big issues in a hurry.  I'm irritable, critical and cynical.  Whereas, when I am living right, troubles seem like inconveniences, and I'm usually able to maintain inner peace even if I don't like what I have to deal with.

The next part of the scripture says, "that ye humble yourselves even to the dust, and worship God, in whatever place ye may be in."  That could refer to physical location, but I think it means more.  It means, as long as we are humble enough to let Christ enter our hearts, and worship God, he accepts us "in whatever place" we are in, spiritually speaking.  Humility, rather than a sin-free life, is the phone connection with God.  Once we know God's love, we must forsake our sins or we no longer have the humility to listen to Him. But Christ does not mandate a level of worthiness to enter the road to happiness.  We may enter the strait and narrow path to eternal salvation at any point we become sick of the darkness of sin.

 My personal experience is that He will listen to us and provide us help even if we are throwing a temper tantrum, so long as we are at that place where we are willing to let in His light.  There was one night in the mid-nineties when I staggered down Mesa Street in El Paso cursing God and screaming, "I want to die" at passing cars. I was serious.  The dull void in my life had grown so big, I saw no reason to live.  I would have ended my life that night if I hadn't been scared. The next morning, I just felt a calm presence say, "Go home, start over."  There was no judgement, just love and empathy.  "Go home, start over."  

I testify to you that there is nothing you could have ever done in your past that would make you unworthy of God's love now.  That is the power of Christ, of grace, of the atonement.  His love is immediate:

3 And the scribes and Pharisees brought unto him a woman taken in adultery; and when they had set her in the midst,

 4 They say unto him, Master, this woman was taken in adultery, in the very act.

 5 Now Moses in the law commanded us, that such should be stoned: but what sayest thou?

 6 This they said, tempting him, that they might have to accuse him. But Jesus stooped down, and with his finger wrote on the ground, as though he heard them not.

 7 So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself, and said unto them, He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her.

 8 And again he stooped down, and wrote on the ground.

 9 And they which heard it, being convicted by their own conscience, went out one by one, beginning at the eldest,even unto the last: and Jesus was left alone, and the woman standing in the midst.

 10 When Jesus had lifted up himself, and saw none but the woman, he said unto her, Woman, where are those thine accusers? hath no man condemned thee?

 11 She said, No man, Lord. And Jesus said unto her, Neither do I condemn thee: go, and sin no more.

 12 ¶Then spake Jesus again unto them, saying, I am the light of the world: he that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life.  (John 8: 3-12)

The world might require restitution; the world might require justice; the world might require punishment.  For some sins, even the church requires penance, not as punishment, but as a means of assistance, of healing, of restoration of the spirit, but Christ requires nothing more than a commitment to get up, dust yourself off, walk out of the darkness, and enter the light. Grace is not earned; it is given; and therefore it is immediate.  That doesn't mean one doesn't have to right wrongs before being fully worthy of the gospel again, but it does mean one has the right to receive the help of the Holy Ghost as soon as one's heart is open for assistance.

The next part of the scripture states, "that ye live in thanksgiving daily, for the many mercies and blessings which he doth bestow upon you."  In order to remain teachable, we must honestly evaluate where we are, and as we all fall very short of perfection, we must know that we truly are saved by the mercy of Christ, that we are blessed by the atonement, and that everything we have is a result of His love.  When we are in that place of true gratitude, consistently walking the strait and narrow path takes care of itself.  It is only when our ego creeps in, when we denounce our short comings, when we complain about our lot, that we are in danger again of wandering off into the darkness.

I pray that we may always listen to the Holy Ghost; that we take the name of Christ upon us; that we humble ourselves and worship Him to the best of our ability; and that we show Him gratitude daily.  For this is the foundation of true happiness and everlasting joy.  

In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen

  

   

Gratitude: Marriage

This is the second post for a talk I prepared for church on Sunday, October 28, 2012 on Gratitude.  I want my future family have record of this. If you like my blog, but are tired of reading Mormon posts, feel free to skip this one (along with the next three). I won't be offended. If you want to learn more, enjoy. 

After I've posted each section, I'll place the entire talk on the Mormon Culture page.


Marriage

I had loved before, but I knew not why.  But now I loved--with a pureness--an intensity of elevated, exalted feeling... the wife of my bosom was an immortal eternal companion; a kind ministering angel, given to me as a comfort, and a crown of glory for ever and ever.

--Parley P. Pratt (1807-1857) on learning the concept of eternal marriage.

It is within families that truth is best learned, integrity cultivated, self-discipline is instilled, and love is matured.  It is at home that we learn the values and standards by which we guide our lives.  It is at home that we come to determine what we will stand for.

 --Gorden B. Hinkly, Standing for Something (2000).

 

For the unbelieving husband is sanctified by the wife, and the unbelieving wife is sanctified by the husband, else were your children unclean, but now are they holy.

 --Doctrine and Covenants 74: 1

 

 

Marci truly saved my life.  She is God's answer to a two-year long prayer that began with my cursing him that Thanksgiving night in El Paso, a prayer that basically said, "Okay God, my way hasn't worked and I can't go on anymore like this."  Although it's hard for the intellectual mind to believe this, I truly believe I was miserable because I had drifted so far from where I was suppose to be by not praying regularly that I was not only emotionally and spiritually in a place I couldn't find her, but physically too.  That voice that said, "Go home, start over," knew I couldn't find her at SUU while I lived in El Paso.  Good stuff for movies right, but real life?  Intellectually, at first it seems that you can't make it work.  There are simply too many of us, too many independent wills--how can God direct my life without ruining someone else's life?  After all, I'm sure I'm not the only one to have ever loved Marci?  What about the others?  Why me, not them?  But even physics suggest time is relative.  If God's time is not our time, even by using our rational minds, we can conclude that it is possible for each of us to still have independent wills and for God to still be a step ahead in order for him to provide us what we need, if we will but listen.  After all, even as a mere mortal, I often know what my children need before they do, and I'm restricted by living in the same time as they do.  Why is it so hard to believe that God, freed from the restrictions of time, cannot do the same for us, and that personal revelation is real, if we will but listen?

 

I'm not sure every marriage was meant to be.  Obviously people can and do marry the wrong person.  But I also know that marriage, if we'll work on it, does, as D & C, Section 74, literally have the power to to sanctify us, even when one spouse is not fully living the gospel.  It is primarily in the home with those closest to us that we truly learn life's most important principle:  love one another.  It is in the home--that constant, close proximity--where we are truly tested, where in order to demonstrate our love we must give up our time, our money and our ego for the sake of others.  It is in the home, we must learn to both carry and be carried, sanctify and be sanctified by another.  Outside the home it's far too easy to profess love, even feel it generally, but never act on it.  I love how John Lennon so honestly captures this.  In, "I Don't Wanna Face It" he says, "You say you want to save humanity / it's people you just can't stand."  Home is too tight a space to allow too great a disconnect between expressed anthems and action.  To be successful in the home, we must live love.  There simply is no way to evade the demands love and be successful in the home. 

 

Perhaps, because of this, marriage and family is one key place where Mormonism varies significantly from other religions.  Although almost all churches sustain and support the family structure, Mormonism is unique in that it believes the highest level of spirituality is reached only through the family.  It takes one level of greatness to be Gandhi in society and an even greater of level of greatness to be Gandhi in the home.  So, in our church, one does not give up family in order to reach the highest spiritual plain, as the Buddha did.  Rather, family is the central unit of the church, of existence, and everything we do should be aligned with what is best for our family.   We perfect ourselves as a unit, not as individual wills.  Ideally, before we take that hunger fast to free India from Britain, we make sure our spouse and children agree to it.  And if they don't support it, we don't do it, even if it is for the greater good.  At first this may seem counter productive.  What if Gandhi or Martin Luther King, Jr. put the personal needs of their families before that of their nations?   Where would we be? 

 

I would flip that question around.  Where would we be as a nation, as a world, if every home had a mother and father who applied the integrity of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. in their home?  I would argue the Civil Rights Movement--in India, or America, or anywhere--would never have to even occur because a society that has true integrity in the home has integrity at large.   And a society that has social inequities and injustices in society is teaching those erroneous ideas in the home.   And yet in our society that is what we give up first on.  As individuals, we struggle for decades to move forward in meaningfless careers and then step out of our marriage the moment it gets hard with little regard for our children, claiming we need space to grow spiritually.  If your spiritual growth requires disregarding those who need you most, I think you need to seriously ask yourself if you are wanting growth or is it escape you seek? 

 

Although I'm a Mormon, I'm a big fan of Buddhist philosophy and have found many of Buddha's teaching help me become a better person.  And yet I've always had problems with Siddhartha's path to enlightenment.  Perhaps the very real, but untold tale in the story of the Buddha (and numerous other soul-searchers) was the cold, sober realization that he left his wife and children in search of truth only to find that truth is found by sitting still, that wandering isn't freedom, but that freedom arises from the strength to stick with the mundane.  Perhaps his brief moment of release was followed by the sober realization that he could have just as easily found enlightenment in his living room as under a tree.  After all, it was his change in thinking, not the tree, that produced his release from suffering.  How much greater would his reward have been to pass that teaching directly on to his children.  If we want the most of what life has to offer, we will struggle to find ourselves within the walls of our homes first, which is why Doctrine and Covenants 74:1 emphasizes the hierarchy of marriage even over the gospel.  Even in the case where one parent believes in the church and the other doesn't, that marriage should be honored.  Once married, the highest level of spiritual growth simply cannot be obtained outside the walls of the home. 

 



Gratitude: Prayer

Our "Sacred Grove"--A stand of maples at Dry Creek. 

At some point in our lives, usually as teens, most Mormons receive a special blessing, called a patriarchal blessing, which is to act as a guide throughout ones life.  This blessing is considered sacred and is not to be shared openly except with close family members.  But instead, we are to act on it, sort of as self-fulfilling prophesy--a revelation we make sure comes true through our actions.  A large part of our decision to move back to Dry Creek and to start the blog was guided by my patriarchal blessing.  I won't go into specifics, but in it I am promised that I'll play an important role in the lives of my grandchildren.  Although I welcome the world to read my blog, and hope you find it meaningful, it is for my future grandchildren I created Dry Creek Sustainable Living.

Therefore, some posts are meant primarily for my family, now and in the future.  This is one such post.   It is a talk I prepared for church on Sunday, October 28, 2012.  It is not the talk I gave, nor the one intended to give. But as a writer, I have to discover what I want say along the way.  Outlines just don't work for me.  So, I wrote this first and then just showed up for church and gave a talk without notes.  Writing this was my preparation. In church, I focused primarily on revelation and talked for about 15 minutes.  This would have been way too long.  None-the-less, I want my future family have record of this.  If you like my blog, but are tired of reading Mormon posts, feel free to skip this one (along with the next four).  I won't be offended.  If you want to learn more, enjoy.  Due to the length, I've broken it up into five posts, each discusing one of the five blessings I'm most greatful for.

Gratitude

Adam fell that men might be; 

and men are, that they might have joy.

--2 Nephi 2:25

Introduction

When we were asked to speak on gratitude, I thought, that's easy, I have so much to be grateful for in this life:  from sunlight igniting stark white aspen trunks on an October morning, to the clank and clamour of the orchestra rising in the Beatles "A Day in a Life" to a stack of warm waffles smothered in blueberries and whip cream.

However, I have always loved these things and yet there was a time in my life when I was miserable enough to seriously contemplate suicide.  Obviously, even things as great as aspen trunks licked by lemon light, the artistic genius of the Beatles, or the heavenly flavor and texture of warm blueberries and whip cream are not where deep, steady joy is found.  And isn't that what we all want?--a solid satisfaction for life that will weather hard times?--to be able to wake up and say, "I'm glad I'm here" not only on that perfect fall day, but on that rainy day when you pull up to your father's house and you cannot enter, but just sit out in the car listening to the steady rain, wondering how on earth you're going to drag yourself into that room in front of all those people after you've just found out your love for your dad is at a cellular level, so deep it's not even really an emotion, but a root, and his death is your death too. Or so it seems at the time.  Isn't that what we want--to earnestly be able to say I'm glad to be alive--even in the middle of that kind of pain?

That is the type of gratitude I want to speak about today, which is scary, because just when you believe you have that kind of gratitude, life will throw a brick at you to check your sincerity.  Also, it's easy enough to speak about gratitude when everything is moving smoothly in your life.  What about the person in the congregation who is in the middle of a divorce or has just recently lost a child?  What gives anyone the right to stand in front of them and preach about gratitude?   So, if you're that person who has lost a child and you feel angry, please know two things:  a) the bishop asked us to talk about gratitude--it's his fault, not ours, and b) I cannot possibly know what you're going through and won't pretend too. Instead, I want to share what I'm grateful for--what transformed me from a deeply unhappy person to someone who is generally satisfied with life.   I'll proceed in the order I discovered or rediscovered them fairly late in life, as follows:  prayer, marriage, the holy ghost, the ward, and a personal God.

1. Prayer

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 unto him.

--James 1: 5

As a child growing up here in this ward, I had an innocent yet deep trust in prayer.  I still remember a couple of instances when I used prayer and believed it truly worked.  One occasion was at a father and son outing at Copley's Cove.  A group of us went hiking to that box canyon to the north, just above the campground--the one that has the waterfall coming over the edge in the early spring.  I was maybe eight or nine.  We all sat down and had snacks there.  Some of the group climbed down in and some of us just sat on the edge and watched.  Afterwards, everyone followed the loop around back to the main White Sage Flat trail.  Halfway around that loop, my friend Jason realized he'd left his backpack on a rock, so he and I went back to get it.  I think now that somehow we missed the turn off trail leading back to camp and instead headed up towards White Sage Flat. 

Anyway, after some time, it became clear we were heading in the wrong direction and both of us felt lost.  And so we did what almost any child would do--we got down on our knees and we prayed.  When we did, I had a strong impression: if you head down slope you will end up in the canyon somewhere and then you can just take the road back to camp.   We did indeed come out on the road, embarrassingly close to camp--we could see it from the rock slide we scurried down after breaking our way through a thicket of scrub oak.

Later, in high school and college, when I'd moved away from the church, I wrote that incident off.  After all, it was common sense, right?  If you're lost in the mountains, head down into a canyon since the branch canyons merge into bigger canyons, which eventually come out into the valley.  No duh?  What I didn't understand in high school and college that I understand now is exactly that:  God answers prayers through the obvious.  He is after all, the author of 'plain and simple truths' and we need to pray most when we are too lost and confused to find the obvious solution on our own.  It may be obvious now that all I had to do was head down slope, but I'm pretty sure that if we didn't stop to pray that day the ward would have had to send out a search party for us.  As simple as the answer was, in our fear, we wouldn't have seen it.  And isn't it beautiful that the answer to most of our prayers are obvious and will come about through our own abilities, our own intellect, or own creativity, if we will but stop and listen to the whispering of the spirit?
 
After all, it is the problems with the simple solutions that are most devastating to humanity.  If you are abusive to you spouse or children, the solution is obvious:  Stop.  If your marriage is in shambles because you go to the bar every night after work and your wife is sick and tired of raising your children by herself, the solution is obvious:  Stop.  If pornography has slowly leaked into your marriage and fantasy has replaced true intimacy with your spouse, one on one, in real time, the solution is obvious:  Stop.

And yet hundreds, thousands, millions of people cannot make these obvious choices day after day.  Humanity is miserable because people can't do what is obviously best for them and others.  Why?  Because we forget to pray.  Day after day, year after year, we forget to pray, eventually believing we can make it on our own, that God is dead, that he's a figment of our imagination, that he's simply a concept by which we measure our pain.  And finally we come to a place where we are so hurt and angry we cannot even consider prayer.  After all, what has God done for us?  Nothing.

I had brought myself to such a low and desolate place in 1995 and I'm here to tell you God answers our prayers even if we are so jaded all we can muster is a curse.  I love the shrimp boat scene in Forest Gump when Lieutenant Dan curses God because of the storm.  I had a similar pivotal moment in my relationship with God.  Obviously, so much greater is our reward, if we can talk to our heavenly father without screaming profanities at him.  But just as we will listen to our children, when out of pain, they yell and scream at us, God too will listen to us.  He never shuts us out, never writes us off, never disowns us.  There is always a way back.  If we are simply humble enough to ask, or at least scream for help.



I'm not going to go into the details but on Thanksgiving night 1995,  after spending the day with a wonderfully warm family in El Paso that just highlighted my own misery, I staggered down Mesa Street in El Paso screaming "I want to die" and cursing God for my miserable life.  I woke up with an impression:  go home, go back to Utah, just start over.

Although the answer was simple, obvious, it didn't seem logical or satisfy my ego.  I was determined to become a writer and let's be honest, rural Utah is not the best place to launch a writing career.  And as a writer, I was doing everything right:  I was part of a strong writing community in El Paso and knew some key people who could help open some doors.  Luckily, I was so miserable that I listened to the voice inside of my head instead of my intellect and pride.  That's a good thing because that choice brings me to my next topic, Marriage. Had I stayed, I'm fairly certain I would have at some point ended my life and never have met Marci.  What were logical career choices were not the right choices for me, an individual spirit of God, put on this earth for a purpose.

I cannot help but wonder how many people would be living alternative, better lives--not richer, more influential, more ego-satisfying lives--but truly better lives if at key moments they chose to listen to the voice whispered inside their head rather than what was logical?   If we do not pray regularly, we cannot know what road we are suppose to be on as individual spirits of God, each put on this earth for a specific purpose. And if we are not on the road that God (not our family, not our friends, not our community) intended for us, we cannot and will not be happy.  That misery has its purpose.  It's God's way of saying, wake up stupid, you're driving off the road!

Obviously, if you have suffered a great loss, such as divorce or the death of a loved one, you will be miserable.  It would be unnatural not to be.  But if life is going along as a matter of routine, and you are still unhappy day after day, weak after weak.  Stop.  It's obvious.  It's not working.  God made man that he might know joy.  You need a spiritual tune up.  Sink to your knees.  Pray.  And be willing to accept the answer.  Obviously you don't know as much as you think you do or you wouldn't be so dang unhappy.  As Cheryl Crow puts it:

If it makes you happy

Then why the hell are you so sad?