Returns

Follow-up to: The Redemption of Shemesh

There are a number of things that I could point to in The Redemption of Shemesh. Shemesh is a Christ figure as easily as she is an Adam, but it is more in this latter vein that I wish to move today. The principal point of The Redemption is there in the title. It is a story of repentance.

Never too little

Follow-up to: Sixteen Hours

There always comes a time in life when our labor is done, whether for the day or for good, and we have opportunity to look back and behold all that we have accomplished.

Shakespeare's Beam

Follow-up to: Afflatus

Over the past two years I have undergone a paradigm shift in re my understanding of writing and the creative process. Or perhaps I have not had a shift of paradigm so much as I have gotten a paradigm: Whence creativity came from, I did not much consider in the past.

Identity Agreement

Follow-up to: Four Snapshots of Eternity

The thread that runs through Four Snapshots is centered on identity. Names tell us who we are, and the knowledge of our identity empowers us. The matter of who we are is truth, and the truth shall make us free.

Partnership with God

Follow-up to: Absent: One Lion

Brother Yudkowsky has discussed at length a number of rules for designing good utopian fiction (and, indeed, good fiction at all). One of the points that he made was that people need to be capable of being protagonists in their own life stories rather. If, if your own life, you have been reduced to the role of supporting cast because you can exert no appreciable influence on the outcome of events, well, then, something is wrong. To put it in Mormon terms, we are supposed to be agents that act out our wills, rather than objects to be acted upon.

To illustrate this idea he brought up several stories, among which was The Chronicles of Narnia. He felt that Aslan made the Pevensies superfluous and that, because Narnia would have been saved with or without them (indeed, with or without anyone but Aslan), they were made supporting cast and had suffered, so to speak, an "amputation of destiny."

While I do support his general idea, I don't agree that the Pevensies got nothing out of the deal. The key is in looking at the Chronicles as a bildungsroman (indeed, in looking at our own lives as each a bildungsroman). The conflicts are not important. What is important is how each child reacts to the conflicts that they encounter: Edmund, for example, turns traitor then repents himself, and seems to keep this episode in mind from then on and give second chances to others. Perhaps Susan's desire to grow up so quickly stemmed from those years in Narnia when she was no slip of a girl but a royal queen.

The point is that the story isn't what Aslan could or couldn't do without the Pevensies- or what God can or can't do without us. The entire history of the world is full of God working with men and women to accomplish His purposes, not so much because He cannot do it alone but because, by becoming co-creators and participants in the drama, we are afforded an opportunity for growth that we would otherwise not receive.

Absent: One Lion quite clearly states that Narnia was saved without the intervention of the Pevensies. Narnia did not need them. But the Pevensies needed Narnia, and we need God, to develop fully.

Can I refute myself?

Follow-up to: The Pillar

In the post What will your mansion look like? I brought up the idea that we are continually changing so that, from one period of time to the next, we are not genuinely the same person.

The Pillar gives me the opportunity to contradict myself and support a different point of view that I find to be as defensible and, even to myself, preferable.

The idea, quite the opposite of the concept that we change so thoroughly as to lose ourselves, is that we don't change. Or, rather, we don't change, what is us does not change. Because what is good and just in us, what is virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, is a permanent jewel. It may be obscured for a time but even if it is lost we will find it replaced in time to come. Your mercy, however small; your love, however weak; your hope, however struggling: these and all other virtues shall never leave us throughout the eternal duration of our progression in Heaven. Wisdom will receive wisdom, light will cleave unto light, and every good thing that we hold will be added upon.

But what is corrupt in us will be scoured away as the eons pass. What is imperfect, or frail, or weak about us is temporary, and if your heavenly future belongs to you, and not to some power that descends from but nevertheless is not you, then it is more "you" than you are today. Now, you are a pillar of stone, but one day the sculpture that is within you will show forth, and it will be seen that all of the dust and rubble was only there to be carved away.

Wanderers far from home

Follow-up to: The Emperor's Children

Whatever else may differ between us on account of our respective journeys in the world, there is something shared between all of us since before this world's foundations were laid. Since before the structure and path of this world was planned and organized, we were sons and daughters of Heavenly Parents, and future Kings and Queens of Heaven.

No matter what we have done, for good or ill, we are first and foremost children with divine and royal potential, and we can never erase our blessed heritage. Some of the emperor's children sold the ring given them, but this did nothing to change who their father was. It displayed a lack of respect for sacred things, and prevented them from being given further responsibilities and greater stewardship, but nothing that they could do was sufficient to disown them from their family.

What will your mansion look like?

Follow-up to: And There Are Many Rooms

Orson Scott Card's Xenocide taught me that we are dying all the time. Who we were ten years ago is not who we will be ten years from now, and only a continuity of consciousness lets us believe that we are an unbroken stream of mono-identity. At heart we are the sum of our thoughts and experiences, and when these things have changed sufficiently between any two moments, in those moments are two different people. The image that I developed after some time was that of a man standing on a tower of corpses, each one a previous self.

And There Are Many Rooms is a new way of discussing the idea, which my trainer gave to me because its previous form- that of our recurring personality-death- caused a reflexive denial in most people that I discussed it with. Personally I had no issue with it, but then, I have a different view of these things than many other people.

Because the man's cottage stays the same, what is not illustrated in the story is that change is inevitable. Whether we like it or not, the house that we are living in is not the house that we will always live in. Our goal, then, must be to ensure that Tomorrow's House is superior to today's, rather than inferior to it.

Our most sacred of "Sacred Times"

Follow-up to: Old Words for New

"And there was War in Heaven: Michael and his angels fought against the dragon; and the dragon fought and his angels." Revelation 12:7 (KJV)

Joseph Smith taught that the War in Heaven was not the work of death but a conflict of words and ideas. It was an essentially missionary conflict, with each side trying to sway as many as possible from the opposition. He taught as well that the war continues today. It is for this reason that I label the War in Heaven as the most sacred of the Sacred Times presented by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. There is a war of ideas being waged now, as there has been many times in the past, but the very first such war was that which was waged in Heaven itself.

We live today in a proselyting time, as it always is when God's Church is present. Today, as always, we fight "the war between truth and error, between agency and compulsion." The gardener may take part in the Creation as she organizes her small corner of the world and brings order out of chaos, but there is one theme that is predominant in our lives and persists no matter what else we are doing. Today, as always, our most important identity is that of a "salvation missionary."

A missionary is one that is on a mission. He preaches, evangelizes, or spreads news, but the nature of this news is not specified by his being a generic missionary. His mission may be anything, really. This is why we are not only missionaries but salvation missionaries, whose mission is to be the instruments of God in saving the children of men. Our reason for doing so is found in the question "If you came across a drowning man, would you ask if he wanted help before you dove into the water after him?"

I am currently serving as a full-time (salvation) missionary for the Church of Jesus of Latter-day Saints, but when I am released this will not change my identity as a salvation missionary, only how I approach the duty.

The Brand Name

Follow-up to: The Seller of Stars

"In the beginning was the brand name, and the brand name was with God, and the brand name was God." John 1:1 (PKD).

In Philip K. Dick's essay How to Build a Universe That Doesn't Fall Apart Two Days Later, he relates a tale about the translation of his book Ubik into the German language. The translator looked at the declaration "I am the word," in the context of the speaker making several statements to the effect that it was God, and concluded that what PKD was having the speaker say was "I am the brand name." PKD goes on to briefly speculate what The Gospel According to St. John would have looked like had the same man been responsible for translating that, too.

A silly anecdote but one that reminded me of the main theme that I present in The Seller of Stars: Satan's best trick is in convincing us to look no further than the Almighty Dollar and that there is nothing in this world that cannot be bought, and no man in it who will not sell his soul so long as the price is right.

These two sides of the coin are where he suckers us in. We want to believe that whatever we want is there for the taking, requiring only a fee for purchase. We also want to believe that everyone else is all-too-willing to sell their souls for a dollar, because it's easier to do it ourselves so long as we can say that we're no worse than the rest of the crowd.

The man in The Seller of Stars sold his soul for his fondest desire, whatever it may have been. He doesn't even need to be told that everyone else is doing it. He just needs the opportunity to make the purchase, and is willing to believe that his eyes- his spiritual sensitivity- is a commodity to be traded like everything else.

Edit 14-08-2013 It has been mentioned that some people have mistaken or may mistake my reference to PKD's essay as an endorsement of it as scripture, as inspired, or anything else along these lines. To reemphasize what I hope is clear to most already, I bring it up because it helped to cement in my mind the imagery of Satan wanting to convince us that, in effect, God is not God, but money is.

Symphony and Flood

Follow-up to: Song and Rain

"The Lord then answered him, and said, Thou hypocrite, doth not each one of you on the sabbath loose his ox or his ass from the stall, and lead him away to watering?" Luke 13:15

"Don't let yourself get distracted by the small stuff; cut through to the meat of what must be done" is how I could summarize the idea put forth in Song and Rain.

The Pharisees were not wholly bad folk. Despite what they may have transformed into by the time of Jesus Christ, for most of their history at least they were deeply concerned with social justice and even in His day enjoyed mainstream support among the Jewish people. It was a Pharisee, Hillel, who famously stated the maxim, "That which is hateful to you, do not do to your fellow. That is the whole Torah; the rest is commentary." The group arose out of the turmoil following the Exile, concluding that Israel had suffered so because they had neglected to properly follow the commandments of God Because of this they sought to raise the bar and fill the profane life entirely with the sacred: there was no room in a properly holy life for impure things.

Phariseeism anticipated the Church of Jesus Christ in these latter-days with this focus. Their intention was to make Israel live up to its calling as a "kingdom of priests" by laying down the temple ritual onto everyday life. The name itself derived from the Hebrew word pārûsh, meaning "set apart." Over generations they apparently degraded into straining over gnats while swallowing camels, however, and herein we see a warning sign provided us by history and the scriptures: When we forget the principle behind the law and follow the law blindly for its own sake we make are left holding a corpse. The principle is the spirit and the law is the body, and though the spirit is ennobled by a tabernacle of flesh it is nevertheless the superior partner. Without the body there is still intelligence in the spirit, but without the spirit there is only death in the body.

The Other Side of the Line

Follow-up to: Two Fishers

What is it that is most sacred? What is it that lies on the other side of the line which divides the sacred from the mundane, the divine from the profane?

Have we stepped into the realm of sacredness when we break bread in remembrance of the body of Jesus Christ and drink in remembrance of the blood that He shed? Or when one, sitting, has hands placed upon his head to confer the Melchizedek Priesthood upon him and ordain him to the office of an elder?

Most would argue in the affirmative. But what about a hike? A bowl of soup? A transient dream?

For Mircea Eliade the Sacred hearkened back to some First Example, but we can draw another concept for this same term: The Sacred is that which changes you.

When you have seen the Mountain, you have seen neither foothills nor an uninspiring pillar but Mount Kenya, where according to Kikuyu myth God lived when He ventured down from Heaven. You have glimpsed the footrest of His throne, or the dome of His revelations. You have seen His temple, which is like a reagent. It will work through you like yeast until you are transformed, and nothing can rid you of it.

Whether you welcome the change or despise it, an encounter with the Sacred does not leave you the same as you once were, and the only question is whether or not you encourage further change.

All of us must one day cease to ask whether it was Father Lehi that they encountered in the night or specter from the subconscious and experiment upon the word, so to speak, then ask what change, if any, it worked upon them. This is what the man in Two Fishers must wrestle with, and perhaps it is what he understands from his partner's words in the dream.

And of what concern of yours is this?

Follow-up to: They called him Judas, after the dagger

"For with what judgment ye judge, ye shall be judged; and with what measure ye mete, it shall be measured to you again." 3 Nephi 14:2

But story isn't entirely about Judas, you know, even though I could say an awful lot about him. It's about all of us, "for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of  God." Judas betrayed his Savior, Peter betrayed his Savior, and so has every other soul in all of the worlds of Creation. As President Uchtdorf repeated in last year's April session of General Conference, talking of a bumper sticker that he had seen, "Don't judge me because I sin differently than you."

We have all done things that we aren't proud of. When the Son of God was in such agony as to bleed from every pore, such agony that even He, who healed the sick and raised the dead, shuddered at the thought of it and asked His Father to take, if it were possible, the experience away from him- how much of this pain was on our own account? How much does it matter that one of us was responsible for one drop, and another of us for another drop?

We don't know what their circumstances are. But we do know that we're all unfinished products, and if God has forgotten their sin then surely we have no justification in remembering it ourselves. Every time that we do so we make a mockery of the Atonement, and the greater sin may well be on our own heads.

I could do no better than to again repeat the words of President Uchtdorf again: "This topic of judging others could actually be taught in a two-word sermon. When it comes to hating, gossiping, ignoring, ridiculing, holding grudges, or wanting to cause harm, please apply the following: Stop it!"

Have a good day, folks.

And why these stories?

Follow-up to: Stories We Tell Each Other in the Dark

There are some stories that we tell to each other in the dark because they are scary, and we like to scare and be scared. There are some stories that we tell to each other in the dark because they are comforting, and in the dark we desire to be comforted, to know that there is light around the corner of midnight and that our dying campfire is not all there is.

These stories are of the second variety. We are real, tangible, flesh-and-bone entities with flesh-and-bone dreams. But we are also stories. Stories being told for our own comfort and for the comfort of other stories, who in turn are for our and their own comfort. 

These are Just So stories, It Gets Better stories, This Is Your Purpose stories. When God saw the darkness, He spoke, and order was forced upon the chaos. In the oldest stories that we have, God told a story and thereby created the universe. 

I don't consider myself up to par with God or even Terry Pratchett, but I am at heart a storyteller, even if one of dismal talent, and when I see a truth I feel a need to tell it with a story. They may not be stories of facticity, but that does not mean that they are not, so far as I am able to understand and express truth, stories of truth. 

But of course it's not just about a Mountain

Follow-up to: Brother, Have You Seen the Mountain?

In his last great address, one of the greatest mountaineers of our age said, “I don't blame anyone for not believing my history. If I had not experienced what I have, I could not have believed it myself.”

There are two mistakes that can be made about the testimony of the mountaineers. The first, that can be made be believers, is that men are fools for not believing. If Joseph Smith, a man that I regard as a prophet of God, could admit that he could have only believed his account by being an eyewitness of it, then can we expect any better of the rest of God's children? Those of us that have believed on the mountaineers' words can easily forget that, until we make the journey, there is nothing but their word that can inform us that there are, indeed, mountains, and not all of us are agreed on whether a man fits the criteria of an ideal witness. Some have not yet even decided that criteria for themselves, or even thought upon the matter. This is a difficult world, and some are too troubled by Destruction to concern themselves with such matters. When it is hard enough to live from day to day, not all feel it reasonable to be bothered about mountains.

But those that do not believe can similarly make the mistake of calling “fool” he who does believe. When a man is respectable, when in all other respects he appears sane and rational, is it mad to believe this account as well as every other that he gives? When he says “I have seen it,” he is a madman, a liar, or a genuine witness. If we judge him sane, if we judge him to be no deceiver, then we have but one option remaining to us, and we must take it or else reject the matter entirely out of hand. And if I have, after believing on their words, seen the Mountain itself, then to reject the matter is to lie to myself, which lie would be the most unforgivable one of all. I may not have walked its slope nor reached its peak as others have, but if I have seen it then still I know that it is there, and the words are etched as deeply in my mind as they are in the Mountain, which say THE MOUNTAIN OF THE LORD. HOLINESS TO THE LORD.