Be Still

Keep running and you don't notice anything.

You could say that my mission has given me a number of additional actions that I can take when presented with any situation. I have a stronger testimony that the answer to a problem just may be in the scriptures, and a better idea of how to find that answer. I've seen priesthood blessings work, and miracles roll out from the side of the road like tumbleweeds or Autobots. But the most unconventional action to take- at least for me- is "Do nothing."

There are times when God says "Wait." It does you no good to rush Him. He knows what He's doing. It does not good to run around in circles until something happens. That only leaves you dead from exhaustion by the time that the cavalry arrives.

Sometimes, you just have to stand there like a fool. And wait for something to happen.

We're not in any kind of race here. Anybody that tells you otherwise is getting their information from the other team. Take each item in its time. Tackle it, thoroughly and efficiently. Go to the next item on your list. As appropriate, distribute rest times throughout your schedule. "Fuel, no tires" may have given Lightning McQueen a temporary edge but then there came the point that he was breaking down, and then when he just couldn't move anymore.

I am reminded of family scripture study this past Sunday. Each time my littlest brother, Owen, took his turn reading he easily took as much time as the rest of us did because he's still working on his reading. I was frustrated at first but remembered the injunction to "Be still," as an investigator expressed it almost two years ago, and put the incident in its proper context. We were reading from the scriptures. Why did I care about getting to the end of the chapter in half the time?

I mention this because I don't mean "Be still" to be applied to your life only when you're waiting for something to come from Heaven (Though perhaps it might be a good idea, now that I phrase it that way, to apply it to the Second Coming and stop being so frantic about it. He'll get here when He gets here, now go do your duty and it'll be well for you no matter when He arrives). It's for everything. Don't rush. For anything.

But yes, it does apply specially well to matters heavenly. Especially to the realm of communication. One of the things that I have learned most strongly since returning home is just how hard it is for God to get through to someone that is always doing something, always listening to someone (else), always going somewhere. All those things make noise, and too much noise blocks out the most important signal.

The calling- the mantle, if you will- of being a full-time missionary for the LDS Church contributed to my spiritual sensitivity, but just as much did my strong desire to take things as they came and focus on each moment in its time. Discarding that, running like a headless chicken, I lost more sensitivity in a couple of weeks than I should have.

Suffer the trials to come

We were born into mortal bodies, subject to all manner of suffering, because we wanted to grow. We could progress no further without being subject to new trials, and every spirit that ever has been or will be embodied was eager for the opportunity.

Now, having passed through the veil, it's hard to keep that in mind. We don't remember the anticipation anymore. But the next time that a trial gets thrown your way, remember that you can't grow if you don't stretch.

And don't focus on the problem itself. Then we look at trials, we're looking behind us, not at the possibilities that God is always presenting to us. It may be hard to see those possibilities when we try to look forward- sometimes we can't see anything, even though we're told that something is there- but we have to trust in God and see as He sees, and take one step after another. Soon enough, we'll find what He's been telling us has been just a few feet out of our immediate vision.

There comes a time for each of us when we are put through fire and wonder why we have been left there. At these times we must remember that silver never was refined without purging fires, and that all these things shall prove to be for our good. It is hard, and it is painful, but we must trust that God knows what He is doing.

Faith's Responsibility

The LDS bible dictionary tells us that 'faith is a principle of action and of power." Faith possesses an active, not a passive, quality. It is for this reason that we are told "faith without works is dead. "

There are many spheres of action in which faith may (and must) make itself manifest, but there is one that I want to mention in particular today: the overt declaration of itself through words or deeds. You see, faith may be utilized in many covert fashions, acted upon in such a way that onlookers don't perceive the mechanisms operating inside. One's faith can hardly be inspiring if it is not recognized.

Once had, faith is responsible for declaring itself, for being a witness- and not a witness in the closet. A city on a hill cannot- and should not- be hid. In the same way, we should make no bones about what we have conviction of (and, for that matter, what we may be struggling with). The bearing of your testimony can be an important part of letting others know that it gets better, or that there is something more than what they have encountered.

Wisdom from the Tree of Life

Go to the flower, thou malagrug; consider his ways, and be wise: How he moves, and how he is still.

For the lady of the house takes him in her hand and moves him from room to room, and sets him here, then there, and thus the flower goes. And where he is set, he remains, and how she adjusts him, he remains; his image and his incline are according to the eye of her desire. As she cuts, transplants, and bends, he yields beneath her touch.

Where he is, he is, until she takes him up again. Where he is, he stands, and his beauty is beheld by all; it cannot be hid. He drinks of the still water of his rest, and his bread is the light that is without end.

And as he was taken from the garden of his beginning, he is dying. And he leaves petals behind in every place that he is taken, here a little, there a little. He does not look toward them as the lady takes him elsewhere, nor think back to them, but is content for knowing that, wheresoever he might go, some of him is left behind.

Where his lady moves him, there he is, until she moves him yet again, and in this he fills the measure of his creation.

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.

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.

Fiction: Brother, Have You See the Mountain?

Into the city Luz, a city of the plain, there came a traveler- a wild man, an holy man (a "mountain man," said he of himself, and his hearers scoffed at the word). Into their city he came, past the dukes playing chess at their great oaken tables, and the princes singing of olden wars from half-forgotten times, past the walls and pillars inscribed with the word DESTRUCTION in awful black ink.