The Price of Understanding

Understanding comes at a price – and people are not often willing to pay it.

This may not seem very intuitive, since understanding ought to be as simple as giving a listening ear and applying one’s mind a little bit. In fact, it’s not – and even those two requirements are often too much to ask.

What’s the high price of understanding? Primarily, it’s the threat to what one already believes to be true. We don’t like to have our accepted truths challenged – it’s a very disconcerting feeling, to be honest. Learning that one thing you believed was true is in fact not leads you open to wonder if the rest of what you believe isn’t suspect as well.

And guess what, ladies and gentlemen? In all likelihood, a lot of it is.

That’s just the way of it – truth is knowable, but it’s not as simple or as easy as we like to think. And all of us know only a small portion of the truth, and we’re often sadly in the dark as to which portion of our beliefs it corresponds to.

If you want to understand something, you have to consider it seriously. But what exactly does it mean to consider something seriously? For me, considering something seriously means learning about it as if it were true, and then giving long, hard thought to the proposition that it in fact is. You don’t, in the end, have to accept as truth what you now understand. But you have to have given it a serious chance, and that means dispelling your disbelief and cynicism for the duration.

Believe me, if you take this approach two things will start to happen. First, you will start to see truth everywhere you look, and realize that nearly everyone’s viewpoint has at least a hard kernel of truth to it – something that you should take seriously and incorporate into your own viewpoint. And second, you will start to question hard-and-fast truths about the world. There will be no more easy black-and-white pictures anymore; no more convenient straw men to take aim at.

There is a sad tendency, when it comes to truth and belief, for all of us to do the following two things:

1.     To believe something principally because it’s convenient, makes our lives easier, or satisfies some other selfish objective

2.     To forget the crucial difference between truth and belief. The former exists independent of whether anyone believes it or not; while the latter admits, by definition, the existence of some degree of uncertainty

And that is the price of understanding. It requires giving up the beliefs we cling to in prideful self-interest, and accepting humbly that we don’t know for sure, and that there is the very real possibility that we are in the wrong. Neither of these two is comfortable, easy, or very much fun. It costs us to be willing to really understand. It demands the courage to face our fears of being wrong (with all its often far-reaching implications), and the humility to sacrifice our convenient, yet prideful and often dearly-held, beliefs.

This is probably why Jesus, the master teacher of truth, taught using parables. The symbolism allowed those of his listeners who were ready and willing to pay the price to understand to do so – and to advance in wisdom and understanding at their own pace, independently of those around them who were unwilling or unable to do so. That way, Jesus didn’t have to force understanding on anyone, and each could pay the price – and reap the reward – at their own choice.

And while it remains true that the decision to pay or not to pay the cost of understanding is our to make, the words of the master urging us to choose understanding ring as true – and as hauntingly – today as they did two thousand years ago. “Any who have ears to hear, let them hear.”

What God wants for Christmas

Wow, it's been a little while since I posted last. This past month has been crazy, to say the least.

This post is, fittingly, about Christmas. Call it my first annual Emotions and Photons Christmas post. And, also fittingly, it features lots of photons (aka light).

So my family has a wonderful tradition. Every year we have our biggest celebration not on Christmas, but four days earlier, on the 21^st of December. Why is that day significant? No, it’s not because we have long been celebrating the end of the world (everything’s supposed to come to an end this year on the 21^st). The 21^st is the winter solstice – a holiday with a long, venerable tradition in cultures around the world.

The solstice is a celebration of light. It also happens to be the shortest day of the year (the longest night), and the two are no coincidence. Northern European tradition is to fill your home with evergreen boughs (because they remain green despite the darkening days), light a host of candles, keep a bright fire burning, gather with friends and family, and dance and sing the whole night through. They believed that by so doing they could keep the night at bay. And if they reveled until the morning sun burst over the horizon, the nights would start to shorten again. The symbolism of this wonderful celebration was the triumph of light over darkness, of love over hate, of good over evil, of hope over despair.

It’s easy to see that the holiday we know as Christmas is a modern (and somewhat perverted) adaptation of the ancient winter solstice celebration. The Christmas tree (evergreen boughs) and electric lights (candles) have clear solstice roots. Even the timing is only four days shifted (to accommodate a Roman holiday, a festival to Jupiter – but we won’t get into that).

I would like to use the comparison of Christmas to the solstice to draw us back to what Christmas is really all about. It’s not about presents, deals, sales, tacky renditions of beaten-to-death tunes; it’s about light and love – and above all, it’s about the man who personifies and exemplifies them in both word and deed: Jesus Christ. Like the Sun (an apt homophone), he is an unbroken source of life-sustaining light. Without him, the days would keep getting shorter and shorter until a day came when the sun didn’t rise at all and night endured forever. His atoning sacrifice typifies the love we strive to offer to our beloved friends and family at this time of year: selfless, unconditional, pure, personal, intimate.

Which brings me to another modern practice with deep historical and symbolic roots: gift giving. In fact, Christmas, for most Americans, is little more than a ritual of gift giving and receiving. But where does the practice come from? From Jesus Christ, of course. In Gethsemane and on the cross he suffered for hours and sweat drops of blood on our behalf. And why? To earn the right to run to our rescue when we need him, when all other lights have gone out, and when no other help is available. Like he promised, he will make our burdens light and easy through the mercy and grace of his atonement.

But Christmas is about giving gifts, not just receiving them. If the gifts we receive symbolize the gift of the atoning sacrifice of the Savior, what do the gifts we give to others represent? What could we possibly offer our Heavenly King? What could he possibly want from us? The answer has ancient roots, once again. The people of God before Christ came to Earth were asked to sacrifice their first-born animals to God, in clear reference to the Father’s sacrifice of his first-born son. When Jesus had accomplished this great sacrifice, he changed the commandment. He no longer wanted the faithful to offer animals as sacrifices. The offering he wanted instead was much more personal – like his gift to us. “And you shall offer for a sacrifice unto me a broken heart and a contrite spirit” he said. The Savior’s gift to us is a sacrifice, and so is ours to him.

But what does it mean to give a broken heart, a contrite spirit? And why is it a sacrifice? And why is it what God wants from us on Christmas?

To find the answer, we have to dive into the scriptures – the Book of Mormon in particular – so stay with me. The answer is worth the effort, I promise. It will change the way you celebrate Christmas forever and open the windows of your soul to the light of Christ – the light that is the object of our celebration at this dark time of year.

 In the book of Second Nephi, chapter 31, the prophet Nephi gives a masterful lesson on the gospel of Jesus Christ. In particular, he speaks about baptism. He reminds us that, while baptism symbolizes being washed clean from sin and born anew, Jesus was baptized even though he had never sinned and didn’t need to be born again. So what could the ordinance of baptism have possibly meant for him? It is true that it reminds us of how much we need baptism, but I think the matter goes deeper than that. Nephi taught that, in being baptized, Jesus “humble[d] himself before the Father, and witnesse[d] unto the Father that he would be obedient unto him in keeping his commandments.” And in response to his humble promise of obedience, the Holy Ghost descended on him.

In what ways did Jesus obey his Heavenly Father? Well, he clearly didn’t do anything wrong, since he never committed any sin (he kept the “thou shalt not” commandments). But he did much more than avoid doing things that are wrong. He did a lot of things that were right, too (a second category of much more important commandments, the “thou shalts”). In fact, every day of his life was an example of what it means to obey the commandments of the Father, and gives us insight into what those commandments really are. When we think of commandments, we first think of the proscriptive rules: thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not commit adultery; thou shalt not steal; etc. Instead, Jesus taught a different set of prescriptive rules: thou shalt be humble and come unto me; thou shalt mourn with those that mourn, and comfort those that stand in need of comfort; thou shalt hunger and thirst after righteousness; thou shalt be peacemakers; thou shalt love each other as I have loved you; thou shalt love your enemies, pray for them that curse you, and do good to them that despitefully use you and persecute you. These are the commandments Nephi was referring to when he said Jesus promised to obey all his father’s commandments.

But what does baptism have to do with the sacrifice of a broken heart and a contrite spirit? Offering to God a broken heart and a contrite spirit means humbly promising to keep his commandments the way Jesus did, to follow in his footsteps in loving and serving and enlightening the way he did while he was on Earth – and the way he continues to do in each of our lives, to the degree that we will let him in. Jesus taught “whoso cometh unto me with a broken heart and a contrite spirit, him will I baptize with fire and with the Holy Ghost” – the same promise associated with baptism, and the promise that was realized after his baptism.

So what does Heavenly Father want for Christmas? What is Christmas really all about? It’s about discipleship; it’s about following Jesus and, to the best of our ability, emulating his life; it’s about exercising the ministry that he would have exercised were he here in our individual shoes today; it’s about loving our loved ones for him, and in his place; it’s about conveying his love for them through our love, in pure and simple terms; it’s seeking to fill others’ lives with light and love, the way he has filled ours.

So when you see the lights on the Christmas tree this year, think of the evergreen boughs and the candles; think of the light and life of the world; and think of the commandments of the Father that he taught us through the life of his Son – the ones that require us to reach out, to love, and to lift; and remember that what God wants for Christmas is for you to humbly live them – like his son did – each day of your life.

Facing fear

Alright, I promised a post on facing fear, so here it goes.

The way I see it, there are two basic responses to fear: either you avoid it, or you confront it. I would estimate (and I frankly admit this to be a Dan-fact) that roughly 99% of the time we deploy the former. I think we would be much better off employing the latter.

Our fears are with us every day, shadowing us wherever we go. They even invade our sleep. Yet, given their constant companionship, it is interesting to consider how poorly understood our fears are. Most are buried deep within our soul, and manifest themselves unconsciously. Even when they surface – as they sometimes do – we rarely think about them, much less expose them to prolonged scrutiny. Instead, we prefer to ignore them, retreating from situations where we may have to face them, and thus avoid the need to probe deeper into unknown territory.

Avoiding one’s fears is understandable. I personally can think of almost nothing in the whole world I dislike more than confronting my fears. Yet precisely for that reason it is essential that we do it – and regularly.

Why? Lots of reasons. Fears grow when you ignore them. They fester, and demand attention. I’m reminded of Noface, the rather scary character from Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away, who when appeased only grows larger, angrier, and more insistent. Only when the protagonist – a little girl with enormous courage – quietly yet resolutely confronted Noface and told him “no,” did he begin to shrink down to his appropriate size and become innocuous.

Perhaps the most important reason we must face our fears is that they rob us of our agency. By ‘agency’ I mean the freedom to make choices, but also the power to determine our future – including the person we want to be and the life we want to lead. If left unchecked and unconfronted, fear will start to make our choices for us. By resorting to default and avoiding our fears, we limit the scope and range of our activities. If we’re not careful, we may look back and see that our entire life experience was colored and framed, not by agency (our conscious selections and choices), but by fear. That’s a chilling prospect.

 And the worst of it is that fear often operates below the radar of our conscious minds. Because our fears become engrained deeply in our psyche, they can limit our choices (or the way in which we interpret them) without our even realizing it. Indeed, fear is a stealthy, dangerous, and poorly-understood foe.

The solution is not a pleasant one, but it is simple: confront it head-on. The rest of this post is a cursory explanation of how exactly to do that. First, though, a huge disclaimer. I hate confronting my fears, as I said earlier. And I’m not very good at it either. So take what follows with a few (hundred thousand) grains of salt. If any of it is useful to you, I’ll consider this post a success.

The way I see it, facing your fears involve three crucial steps:

1.     Acknowledge

2.     Explore

3.     Let go

I personally hate step-by-step processes, and I like numbered lists even less. But I didn’t want any of these three parts to go unnoticed, so I gave in and listed them like that.

The first part, of course, is admitting you are afraid. We spend far too much time telling ourselves we’re fine, that we’re not afraid. Far from changing anything for the better, this just gives our fears even more leeway to run our lives. But acknowledging that we’re afraid isn’t enough. The crucial moment is when we say out loud exactly what it is we’re afraid of. Making a precise, verbal declaration of our fear is crucial.

Have you ever been wondering something, or looking for something, or stuck on a problem, and you’ve been going in circles inside your head for the longest time – then you finally find someone and ask your question out loud, and by the time you’ve finished saying it you know the answer? It happens all the time to me, and I think there’s a powerful principle at work. Until you’re ready to ask a question, you’re not ready to hear the answer; asking a question prepares your mind for the answer.

By the same token, declaring your fears prepares you to face them. You’re not ready to face them until you’re and willing to name them. In my experience, naming my fears leaves me feeling like I’ve already come halfway to facing them.

Second, is to explore. It’s like taking a flashlight with you and exploring an old, dark storage shed that no one’s been in for years. Evil things grow in the dark, and the quickest way to destroying and uprooting them is to shine light on them. Exploring your fears, however, is dangerous, risky, and scary. You never know what you might find in a dark, cobweb covered corner. What you find might influence the way you see yourself. In fact, I’ve often felt like this stage is akin to looking at yourself hard in a mirror after a long time without seeing your reflection.

The odd truth is that we can’t see ourselves very easily. Others can see us all the time, but we can only get a good look at ourselves by using a mirror. Facing your fears is one way of holding up a mirror to yourself – and you may not like what you see.

Two final comments on this stage of facing fear. First, really explore! It’s not enough to look for the obvious, surface level culprits – you have to really dig down to discover the tap roots of your fears. And they may surprise you. You may find out that you’re not really afraid of what you thought you were; that you’re afraid of something far more essential, something that cuts far closer to the bone – or the heart, as the case may be.

Second, while it’s important to explore thoroughly and carefully, it’s equally important to know when to leave the dark room and return to the daylight. Don’t stay too long in the dark trying to make sense of dusty old junk. In the process of exploration, you may become hung up on questions of “why?” The truth is we may never know in this life the answer to the deepest, most troubling “why?” questions. But it’s equally true that, in the end, they don’t matter nearly as much as the “what?” questions. In other words, asking why we are the way we are is not as important as asking what we should do about it, now that we know what we know.

Finally, you have to let go. What do I mean by this? Fear and hope grow together, remember? But feeling fear is one thing, and facing it is another. We begin to feel afraid when we can’t bear to contemplate a future where our hopes don’t come true – or where our fears do. Facing fear and letting go means being willing to accept a future where everything goes wrong.

I’m not saying you give up on our hopes. Rather, stop insisting on them. You have to be ok with a future that doesn’t realize them all. You have to be able to look your fear square in the eyes and say, “do your worst. I’ll be ok no matter what.” And no matter what happens, you face it calmly, with patience and grace.

The whole process is summarized in a short sequence near the end of the greatest animated series of all time, Cowboy Bebop. The main character, Spike, is on the verge of a very dangerous confrontation, and seeks advice and wisdom from his venerable native American friend, chief Red Bull. Spike is clearly afraid he might not come back, but chief Old Bull – rather than reassure him that he will survive, gives him this advice: “Do not fear death. It is always at our side. When we show fear, it jumps at us faster than light. But, if we do not show fear, it looks upon us gently and guides us into infinity.”

I’ve thought about that a great deal, but try as I might I can’t seem to say it any better, or clearer, than Old Bull.

Sorrow, suffering, embarrassment, hurt, disappointment, death – they are all just an arms length away. We live our lives in their shadow. But we need not be afraid, though fear is always there.

If we fear them, and consequently spend our lives trying to avoid them, not only will we fail to escape their influence, but we will find to our chagrin that we have, in the process, lost the chance to truly live.

Live deliberately. And let what happens, happen. If you do not show fear, the storms may rage but you will not be moved. And in the end you will see that it was the storm itself that made you who you are, and taught you to hope and have joy; and finally, it will guide you into infinity.

Sorry for waxing poetic there at the end, but Old Bull’s words to Spike really have the ring of truth to them. I hope we can learn to face our fears, that we may live deliberately, the way we always hoped we would.

It's hard to change the way you lose

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Have you ever wished you weren’t the person you are? That you could be someone else? Or maybe you just wish you could change some fundamental part of yourself. Have you ever felt hopeless against the overwhelming reality of who you are?

I’m a strong believer in our capacity to learn. And here it’s important to realize that we don’t always learn the right lessons. While I don’t think we come into this life a blank slate, it’s probably something pretty close to it. From day one, our mind is hard at work – observing, processing, learning. Our brain’s ultimate function and responsibility is to allow us to develop the skills necessary to cope with the experiences we face. The skills we learn determine our strengths and weaknesses – which in turn condition our experiences.

This feedback loop can be very powerful, limiting our lives to a very narrow slice of the possible.

Many if not most of our behaviors follow closely the relative skills we’ve learned, and are coping mechanisms – helping us deal with the situations we routinely face. Behaviors, as much as addictive substances, can be habit forming, and over time the experience of those behaviors – and the situations they were developed to cope with – condition our expectations. Before long, we don’t expect life to be any different than what we’ve always known, and we can scarcely imagine anything better. In this way, we’re each very much prisoners to our own selves, to the experiences that made (and make) us the way we are.

Most dangerous of all, over time our life experience prompts us to make an assumption – one that, although it sounds true, is in fact a lie: Our lives are the way they are because that’s what we deserve. The crushing implication is that, in the words of Stephen Chbosky, we can only “accept the love we think we deserve.”

In short, “it’s hard to change the way you lose if you think you’ve never won.” Props to Matt Nathanson for that one. It rings particularly true to me right now – almost like the church bells at the end of a requiem. Ok, maybe not that ominously or with quite that degree of finality. But it’s hard to argue against the reality it summarizes: that our lives are a beaten path that we rarely stray from. So rarely, in fact, that we can scarcely imagine scenery other than what we see each day.

Ok, so this post is getting pretty depressing. But it’s true – and for that reason alone it’s worth writing. But I’m not a fatalist, and I refuse to take a totally negative view on anything. There is always, in every truth, a kernel of hope.

So, is it possible to change the way you lose? Yes, it is. But doing so requires an enormous amount of faith, hope and courage.

Faith in yourself – that you have infinite potential and that you could learn everything you haven’t yet learned, if only you gave yourself the chance; that you could become everything you are not yet, if only you were faced with the experiences you need to mold your character – and the courage and strength to bear them with true patience.

Hope in a better future, a fuller, richer life. It’s not easy to hope when your past experiences tell you that hope is a dangerous lie, and that you get only what you deserve. It requires clear vision: the ability to see the future you want, the person you know you can be.

But above all, such hope requires courage – a god-like supply of it. Nothing is harder than facing down your own fears. Nothing makes you feel crazier than telling a lifetime of experience to shut the hell up as you embark on a journey that you have little reason to believe will end in anything but bitter tears and disappointment.

All that sounds like a little too much for one mere mortal to manage. If you feel that way too, you’re in good company. I don’t think anyone’s capable of it, on their own. Fortunately, while life can often feel hopelessly lonely, it’s been my experience that, from time to time, and when he’s convinced I’m ready to give up, God sends someone my way.

A friend can make all the difference in the world. When someone goes out of their way to love you and reach out to you of their own accord, it must mean that there’s still something about you worth fighting for, right? When you see no reason to believe in yourself, the love and confidence of a friend can reignite the spark of self worth. A true friend challenges what you've always assumed about yourself, and gives you the chance to expand your vision to realms you had already abandoned hope of achieving.

Such friends have, in my life, restored faith in who I am, hope in a happier future, and the courage to try and make it a reality.

Little is as disabling as loneliness. Nothing is as enabling as true friendship.

I won’t tell anyone that if you just grit your teeth hard enough and summon enough gumption you can overcome your demons. I’ve never found that to be true. But I do believe that where friendship and love are present, miracles can happen.

I thank my God for every good friend he has sent my way, who has crossed my path, who has restored my faith.

It is indeed hard to change the way you lose, which is why we desperately need friends to convince us we deserve more than the love we have come to expect. May God, in his mercy, grant you such friends when you need them most.

Of hope and fear

For those of you following the blog, I apologize for the long lapse between posts - life gets busy sometimes. I'll try to be more consistent and frequent in the future :)

This post is the result of a long process, inspired mostly by the thoughts and experiences others. It focuses on hope and fear – two concepts that wield a huge influence on our lives but that we rarely understand. Because they are predominantly emotions, we don’t often take the time to think about them in a relatively unimpassioned way, away from the heat of the moment. I guess this post is an attempt to do so, in the hopes that what is learned will be useful.

First, some definitions. Bear with me, it is actually crucial that we get them right.

Hope means looking forward for something good to happen in the future. You have no guarantee that it will occur, but you hope that it will. The opposite of hope is despair. It means that there is literally nothing that you want to happen in the future. You have given up on all of your hopes ever coming true.

You can’t live in a state of despair for long. What reason would you have to keep on living, other than the sheer momentum of your beating heart? In fact, I would define death to be living in a state of despair. Where hope brings life, despair extinguishes it.

Next, let’s define fear. Now, you might be thinking to yourself, “wait a minute! Isn’t fear the opposite of hope?” Yeah, I thought it was – until I was prompted by others to sit down and think about it. Turns out, fear is not the opposite of hope. As I said earlier, despair is hope’s opposite.

So what does that make fear? If you’re afraid, it means that you worry something good won’t happen, or that something bad will. Like hope, fear is related to events in the future, that haven’t occurred yet, but for which we have a definite preference. We hope that good things will happen; we fear that they won’t. We hope the bad ones won’t happen; we fear that they will.

Clearly, there is a relationship between hope and fear. But what is it, exactly?

Fear and hope are what I like to call an “opposition pair.” Now, this is a term I’ve coined because I’ve yet to come across a word in English that accurately captures the relationship between these two – though they are by no means the only opposition pair out there. An opposition pair are two objects that describe – through mutual opposition – one larger object. I know, that’s a crappy definition – I’m still struggling with the wording. Maybe some examples will help illustrate.

In Mathematics, it takes two directions (one positive, the other negative) to describe a single dimension. Think of a line – the classic one-dimensional object in math. It has two directions, but is comprises only one dimension. A two-dimensional object – a plane – requires four directions. Which is why there are four “quadrants” in the x-y plane, and four cardinal directions on a compass rose.

 In the Mathematics example, then, hope would be “+” while fear would be “-“.

But this example makes hope and fear seem like opposites again, so let me give you a better example from Physics. The physical world – as far as Physicists, a generally confused bunch, have a clue – is made up of particles. Each one, Physics teaches us, has an anti-particle associated with it, which has the same mass but most other characteristics (such as charge) are opposite those of the particle. Oh, and the anti-particle is made of ­anti-matter as well.

How does this apply? Well, in Physics there is a phenomenon known as pair creation whereby, via Einstein’s famous e = mc², pure energy can spontaneously condense and give rise to a pair of particles. This can happen for pairs of particles, but never for single particles by themselves. Why is this the case? The universe, it would seem, has a preference for symmetry, and there are a number of conservation laws that preserve it. So if you create an electron, you must also create an anti-electron (or “positron” as it is known) at the same time, moving in the exact opposite direction with exactly equal speed.

The Physics matches nicely with a concept taught in the Book of Mormon by a prophet by the name of Lehi – and here is where we finally make it back to hope and fear. Said Lehi, “for it must needs be that there is an opposition in all things” (2 Nephi 2:11).

Notice that he said “opposition in all things” and not to all things. It’s not that some omnipotent force is out there ensuring that everything we do is opposed. Rather, the universe was designed in such a way that the opposition is literally built into everything.

Like a positron and electron – or like two directions that together define a dimension – hope and fear are opposition pairs that together define something bigger. I’ll reveal later what I choose to call that bigger something.

The takeaway point here is that fear is not the opposite of hope so much as the reaction to it. Every time we begin to wish for something to occur in the future, we suffer the corollary fear that it won’t. When we extend our hopes, we extend the potential for disappointment – and, hence, fear. So hope and fear actually grow together, not at each other’s expense. I used to think – and I would argue it’s conventional wisdom – that the more you hope the less you fear, and vice versa. But in fact it’s not true – fear and hope grow together, like both directions of an expanding line segment, or particle pair creation.

But now wait, if hoping more only generates more fear, then why don’t we just conquer fear by ceasing to hope? Well, you can’t live without hope, as I pointed out earlier. As human beings, we’re bound to hope. It’s irrepressible! So that leaves us with no other option than to learn to manage our fears.

Which, of course, is no easy task. I mean, who enjoys facing their fears? I sure don’t. But this is mostly, I think, because fear is a poorly understood foe. And I have discovered, through my own experience, a general rule of thumb: the more you get to know your fears, the less scary they become.

Maybe, if I find the time, I’ll devote my next blog post to facing fear. But since I’ve made that promise in the past and not kept it, I’ll refrain from making the same mistake again. My next post will be on dealing with fear, In shah Allah.

Crossing to the other side

Life is a tall mountain range. We are on one side, and where we want to go is on the other. Life is so much better on that side; it is there that true happiness awaits us.

On the one hand we know we aren’t truly satisfied with where we are now, but on the other hand the mountains are so high and the path over them so long and hard. Is it really worth it – all that effort? Can we really make it? Do we have the strength and perseverance to make it all the way over?

We’re all secretly afraid of starting out and making it a long way up, only to realize we don’t have don’t have what it takes to reach the other side after all. Because sometimes, when you’re on that trail, anything seems better than going further. Sometimes we feel certain that nothing on the other side could possibly be worth this pain, this sweat and these tears.

After all, this side isn’t so bad, really. I mean, sure, it isn’t exactly as great as what’s on the far side, where we would really like to be. But it’s not exactly terrible either. It’s kind of comfortable, to be honest. We’re not particularly happy over here, but we’re comfortable. And it sure is easier than trying to cross those insurmountable mountains.

And what’s happiness anyway? Has anyone actually experienced it? Is there anything qualitatively different over there than what I have right here and now?

I mean, who’s good enough to make it over those mountains anyway? Certainly not alone – no one could possibly make it alone. And even with someone else helping you there’s no guarantee you’ll make it. You know what? After all is said and done, I think I’d rather stay on this side, thanks. I’ll leave the heroism and the “true happiness” (whatever that even means) to other people. Meanwhile, I’ll be enjoying my unhappy yet completely comfortable life right where I am now.

That’s the kicker. We fear losing comfort; we fear pain, disappointment, hardship, heartache. And we let those fears decide for us. Above all, though, we fear failure. We don’t want to come up against the limits of our ability, our strength, our goodness, and realize just how weak and ignoble we are. As long as life is comfortable and doesn’t make any real demands of us, we can go on giving ourselves the benefit of the doubt: assuming we’re better than we really are.

Growing hurts. Learning often comes with an ample dose of pain. Trying often leads to failing. Especially when we try to do it alone. But anything that is truly worthwhile is on the other side of those mountains. And don’t think that this an unfortunate coincidence. It’s that way by law of nature. Only after the climb are the views spectacular.

Wherever it is you would rather be, are you willing to give up your comfortable life to get there? Is the happiness worth the discomfort, the frustration, the unfairness, the pain? Are you worried you’ll fail?

My advice: give it everything you’ve got – literally everything – and don't give up. Oh, and one more thing: don’t do it alone.

Getting into heaven

Before I left Jordan a few weeks ago, I had a cool experience that I wanted to share on this blog. I’m interested in sharing it because it helps illustrate the truth behind one of religion’s most controversial issues: how “to get into heaven.”

So, most religions make claims of an afterlife – something after death. Basically, we go on living in some state or another after we die, and religions generally make an attempt to describe that state. That there is indeed an afterlife I am certain. Not 100% scientifically certain, but then again not even scientists are 100% certain of anything. There is always an error term, no matter how small. Suffice it to say that I’m pretty sure that this life isn’t the end of the road. But there’s a common understanding of the monotheistic description of the afterlife that doesn’t sit right with me.

To put it simply, most major world religions – and certainly all three of the monotheistic ones (Islam, Judaism, Christianity) – claim there are two worlds that exist, heaven and hell, and that we will all be sent to one or the other after we die. Heaven is a good place – you want to go there. Hell is not. You don’t want to go there. How do I know which one I’m destined for? Well, religions try to answer that question, and basically it comes down to this: if you’re a member of the correct religion (i.e. ‘ours’), and you’re a reasonably good person, you go to heaven. Otherwise, you’re hell-bound.

It’s as if there are certain conditions you have to fill – like boxes you have to check off on a “to-do list” – in order for some austere God to let you pass the “gates of heaven.” It’s almost like God is an immigrations officer at an airport, carefully checking your passport for all the requisite stamps, visas, etc, and making sure you haven’t been to Las Vegas too often, before letting you into the country.

Some of my friends have asked me how such a view of God is consistent with the often-heard claim that he is loving, caring, compassionate, and devoid of any hateful feelings or desire to harm. How can such a being thrust someone down to hell?  I mean, isn’t hell endless torment? I wouldn’t wish that on anybody, so how could a loving God do such a thing?

These are very good questions. My recent experience might provide some illumination.

So I lived in Amman, Jordan, during this past summer. Jordan is a predominantly Muslim country – though there are a few Christians and other religious minorities too. The Muslims in Jordan tend to be quite conservative and practice their religion, at least more faithfully than many Christians in the West do. Anyway, the month of Ramadan was ongoing at the time, which means that Muslims don’t eat or drink from sunup to sundown each day. As soon as the sun goes down, they have a huge meal called iftar, after which they sit around for hours enjoying their favorite vices (coffee, cigarettes, etc – many of them don’t drink, as it’s forbidden in Islam) while generally shooting the breeze and relaxing. It’s fairly challenging to fast all day for an entire month, so as soon as the sun goes down Muslims tend to reward themselves for their abstinence with a larger-than-normal amount of their favorite pleasures – food, coffee, tea, sweets, cigarettes, talking, joking, sitting around and generally relaxing.

I got invited to iftar by a couple generous brothers – both about my age – whom I had met just the day before. There were a number of young men at their house – maybe 15 or 20 of us in all – and we were sitting outside in the garden shooting the breeze after the meal was finished. The house was quite large, especially for Jordan (a relatively poor country); my friends’ father was clearly someone important and influential.

I didn’t have to wait long to learn more about him though, as he soon entered the garden from the street. As soon as he did, the atmosphere changed completely. Everyone put out their cigarettes, set down their coffee, and stood up. There was complete silence, except the quiet sound of this man’s steps as he approached our group. I have never experienced the word “patriarch” quite like this before. He was a middle aged man, dressed in a long white robe (a ‘dishdash’ in the local dialect) which came up to a collar that buttoned at his neck. His arms were hidden in his billowing sleeves, so that all you could see of his body were his face, hands, and sandal-clad feet.

He had a kind, pleasant face with a bright smile, and he greeted each of us in turn, shaking our hands. All of us remained completely silent while this was going on, and only sat down when he finally did. In a quiet voice (he didn’t need to speak loudly, as there were no other sounds to speak over) he politely asked about those of us whom he didn’t yet know. No one spoke unless spoken to, and then each responded quietly, modestly, and respectfully. After inquiring about iftar and wishing us a happy evening, he arose and entered the house.

The change in the atmosphere was again as sudden as when he had entered the garden. It felt as if the very air had been holding its breath, trying not to make a sound, out of respect for this man; as if his presence required everything around him to exist in perfect order and peace; as if he couldn’t tolerate disorder or chaos, and wherever he went these things fled, or else were temporarily held in obedience.

After he left, you could almost feel the group of us sigh in relief, slouch down in our seats a little more, light up cigarettes again, and resume our casual jokes and conversation.

As soon as things went back to normal, the thought crossed my mind that what had just happened was somewhat analgous to being in God’s presence, in heaven.

I want to make a few observations that I think are pivotal to understanding this concept of “getting into heaven.” First, there was nothing compulsory, or forceful, about my friends’ father. To use a favorite phrase of mine from the Doctrine and Covenants (a book of scripture of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints), his effect on us occurred “without compulsory means” (D&C 121:46). He didn’t force us to stop talking, put out our cigarettes (I’m speaking for the group – I don’t actually smoke), and stand up as he walked over. He didn’t even ask us to. We did it naturally, on our own. We chose to behave that way out of respect for the kind of man he was.

Second, being in this man’s presence was ennobling. It brought out the best in each of us, and made us wish we were nobler than we were. it also made us wish we had more to show for our twenty-some-odd years on Earth. It was clear that my friends’ father was evaluating what we had done with our lives so far. This judgment was anything but severe – he inquired respectfully about each person he didn’t know and never expressed disapproval. But the sense of assessment, of evaluation, was unshakable.

Finally, being around that man was hard. What exactly do I mean by that? Well, as I said before, being around him made us want to be our best – and that takes hard work! It really does. It means you have to suppress decisively the impulse to settle for something less than what you’re capable of. When he left, the collective sigh of relief was quite audible (after he was out of earshot, of course). We each slumped back down to the mediocre state we spend most of our lives living in.

It was kind of like an electron in an excited state. An electron in an excited state has more energy – and therefore more potential – than it does in the ground state, but it doesn’t last there for long. Nature prefers lower energy states (the lower the better), and systems tend to move that direction over time in the absence of an external source of energy.

Similarly, you and I have more energy to be the kind of person we know we should be – and that, deep down, we really want to be – when we’re under the influence of an ennobling force. But it takes real effort to remain there, fighting the urge to just accept mediocrity and give up on excellence. To be honest, our group of twenty-somethings was perfectly happy to slide back down to our ground state, so to speak, as soon as the patriarch left.

So what does all this have to do with “getting into heaven”? Quite simply this: there are no walls around heaven designed to keep people out. If there are walls and a gate, they are purely cosmetic – and the gate is open 24/7. Anyone who wants to come to heaven can, and no one will stop her – except, perhaps, herself. You see, the catch is this: to live in heaven, you have to be able to endure it.

It isn’t easy living with God. He brings out the best in us, and giving him anything less is unacceptable. Not because he would expel us if we didn’t, but because we would expel ourselves before we dared. Anything that isn’t pure, honest, virtuous, kind, true, and noble can’t endure God’s presence and would rather flee than be less than he knows we can be.

So we have two simple choices: conform to the holy order that his presence requires, or live according to our own personal preferrences somewhere else. Those who don’t live in heaven don’t live there because they chose not to live there. In fact, God begs, persuades, and cajoles all of us to come to heaven, and throws the gates wide open. But some of us will decide that they would rather live elsewhere – because they can’t live up to the caliber of man that he is, and couldn’t possibly feel comfortable being anything less around him.

There is a simple principle taught in the Doctrine and Covenants that beautifully summarizes what I’ve tried to explain. And small wonder: it’s the reason I believe what I do. “For he who is not able to abide the law of a celestial kingdom cannot abide a celestial glory.”

I guess I’ll finish with one final question and answer as food for thought: how do we become able to abide a celestial glory? We learn how here, on Earth. The things we experience here, during our mortal lives, are preparing us to be able to endure the loving, ennobling, glorious presence of God.