Becoming the Hand

As you can see from my previous post,* I just finished reading The Holy Secret by James L. Ferrell.  Great book, not very satisfying ending, though.

Here's why I love reading:  I really feel as though it gets the gears in my mind turning and I usually end up having realizations that are only tangentially related to the words on the page.  Such was the case with this book, wherein my biggest A-ha came in the form of an increased understanding of the Atonement.  Maybe only an increase the size of a particle of dust, but an increase nonetheless.

Here's what I came to understand:

In both my adult and adolescent lives, I have – like everyone – had moments of sheer adversity, filled with challenge and struggle and strife.  Over the years, I have been able to shift my view of these situations as boons – blessings – that have both 1) brought me to the person who I am (whom I love), and 2) enabled me to help others in similar situations to get through those times when there seems to be no light at the end of the tunnel, and the tunnel feels more like an insurmountable chasm.

Take, for example, my struggles as a teenager with ridiculously consuming depression.  Crippling, seemingly unendurable depression.  Without trivializing the process or making it sound easier than it was (and is for those currently struggling with a similar situation), I am proud of the fact that I was there.  And the fact that I worked – hard – to hike out of that pit.  But, even more gratifying, I think, is the fact that I am so ridiculously grateful that I have been there.  That this struggle was the struggle that my Heavenly Father chose for me... because I really cannot conceive of another way that I could have here, at the me whom I love so much.

I share all of this to get to my point about the Atonement, and I'm getting there, I promise.

While at American University, I had the privilege to work with young men and women who were dealing with this and other related situations.  I felt waves of gratitude wash over me every time I was able to use the abundance of my life experience as a supply for those in need of the lessons I had already learned.  It was here, in these moments of paying it forward (and in the myriad opportunities since then), that I was able to see my struggles as greater blessings that the easiest, happiest of times... for it was in the challenges that I was tutored in how to become the hand that lifts others upward.  I can lift others because I have already learned how to overcome, empowering me to teach others how to heal and overcome as well.

All of this is once long preface to get to this one point, the striking realization that came to me while reading The Holy Secret, which is this:  I am so grateful that my Savior has experienced this world and this mortal probation... and not only that, but that He chose to experience the whole of my struggles and temptations; the good times and bad.  I am grateful not because the grandeur of the sacrifice, while it was indeed grand, but because it seems to me that Christ is infinitely able to be the hand that lifts each of us because He has already been there, He has already experienced it for Himself.  In short, He has been tutored in my pain and already overcome it, thereby enabling Him in turn to lift and tutor me to do the same for my brethren.  And that, indeed, is a gift.

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The Exemplar

You can find this book at Deseret Book here.

An excerpt from a book that I just finished reading: 

The atonement is the great, central proxy ordinance of time and eternity.  All other ordinances are appendages to it.  As with the living, the dead, too needed to have an atonement made for their sins.  Jesus did for them and for us what they and we could not do for ourselves.  Anyone who believes in the atonement of Christ therefore implicitly believes, whether he knows it or not, in vicarious work for the dead.

Has anyone else never thought about that before?  That of course ordinances can be performed for those not living, since Christ, in His Atonement, performed the ultimate vicarious ordinance?  Amazing stuff, no?

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Stringing the Pearls

Welcome to Book Report Tuesday!  I recently finished up Becoming a Great Gospel Teacher:  Bringing the Gospel Classroom to Life, which can be found here.  It was an easy read and had some good insights, though it wasn't the most ground-breaking tome on Gospel teaching ever written.

I have, however, been really struck by one theme throughout the book; that of each one of us taking responsibility for our own learnings.  The idea, as expressed by the authors, is that, as students, we should each be taking responsibility for our own Gospel learning instead of relying upon others – teachers, peers, leaders – to both supply a continuous stream of Gospel information and to do all the work of application in our lives.  For teachers, the foremost goal is simple:  expect the students to be responsible in their learning and to facilitate them doing so.

As a teacher in my Relief Society, I have seen a remarkably high level of engagement during class, but varying levels of preparation beforehand or sustained thought afterward.  Our sisters are wonderfully in the moment as the lesson is being taught, which is such a blessing to a teacher.  However, I have had a difficult time pinning down just how much the lessons stick with them as the exit the classroom.  Do the lessons leave with them, or do the sisters leave them in the classroom?

So, while the book gave some tips for encouraging students to take hold of their own education – some of which have been employed in our Relief Society – but at some point, the sisters have to decide for themselves whether or not to just do it.  As a teacher, I have been astounded by the incredible relational value each of our lessons have, simply by virtue of being part of the Gospel.  The cumulative effect has been one that has done away with my propensity to think about subjects within the Gospel – the Atonement, service, gratitude, work – in silos, each wholly distinct from the other.  Instead, I have begun to see the Gospel as this glorious whole, miraculously inclusive of every human question, activity or responsibility.

And that fact has increased my faith in a way I cannot entirely articulate.

It has been, for me, a process akin to stringing pearls.  A single pearl is not in itself all that amazing.  Sure, it's perfect and round and its luster is beautiful, but it's just a pearl.  What does one do with a single pearl?  You put it in your pocket and lose it.  However, when you get these pearls together, you start stringing them together, putting one pearl on the strand, knotting the string, putting another, knotting that one in place... And pretty soon, you have something much grander, much harder to lose, much more difficult to overlook.

It has been the same, for me.  Learning a principle here and there has been an amazing thing in my life...but what do I do with a single principle without the context of the Gospel?  I may try to apply it, but when it comes down to it, that one principal doesn't have the full force of the Gospel behind it.  In the process of taking control of my own spiritual education, though, I have begun to see each principal in light of the Gospel and have found connections between them.  Not only have I felt that each learned principle is much more securely in place, but I feel like my grasp of the Gospel has been magnified.  The Gospel seems so much grander than I previously imagined.

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Universalistic Mormonism

Happy Book Report Tuesday!  I want to thank you, upfront, for indulging me.

So, as previously mentioned, I have been reading of late in Louis Jacob's The Book of Jewish Belief.  Want to check it out for yourself?  Take a look on Amazon here.  In all honesty, it's a hybrid between a text book and Louis' manifesto of the Jewish faith.  But – and this is a big but – it is absolutely breathtaking.

Now, some prefacing:  First, I know that this book is probably much more impassioning to me than it will be for most.  It has ignited within all of the love, respect, admiration and awe I felt for Judaism before joining The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.  I honestly felt for some time that conversion to Judaism was plausible.  But then I found the Gospel, and found a way to be a Mormon and still a Jew.*  Second, I feel like I must also say, that I know this might be more interesting to me than...really...any of you because I feel particularly called to study the mores, spirituality and traditions of the Hebrews.  So yeah.  You have been duly warned.

Also, a note:  I would highly encourage you to replace the word 'Jews' with 'Mormons' and 'Judaism' with 'Mormonism' in the quotes to follow in order to catch the spirit of their impact they have had on me as I have gone through this book.

In chapter five of The Book of Jewish Belief, Jacobs explores the idea of the faithful of Judaism as the chosen people.  So much of the verbiage here falls perfectly in line with the doctrines of the restored Gospel (go figure).  Not only that, though.  Some of Jacobs' thoughts in this chapter contain such simple truth about Deity's interaction with His chosen and how those chosen interact with the rest of the world – truth stated so simply and poetically and lovingly that we Saints would do well to listen up.

Jacobs explores Judaism as particularistic (concerned only with Jews) and universalistic (concerned with all humanity), asking which are we?  "The uncomplicated answer," he writes, "is that Judaism is both."  This is so true of our own Church, my beloveds, but I wonder how much we regard it as such.

Sure, we engage in missionary work; and what a wonderfully important work that is!  However, I tend to categorize our missionary work as particularistic as we are interested primarily therein with converting souls to Mormonism.  There is something much more powerful in the concept of being chosen, I think.

Rabbi Jacobs describes the chosen status of the Jews in this way:

Only by blowing into the narrow end of the shofar (pictured at right) can a musician create beautiful, rich sound in the wide end...the Jews as a particular [chosen] people have a role of service for the good of all people.  

I would posit that the Saints embody this image in the latter days.  Our Father has a work for us to do, both individually and as a Church.  While part of that work is to bring others into the fold, I have to believe that part of it is also to be the few that our Parents employ to bring beautiful music into the world.  To lift.  To inspire.  To...just...be.  To be the "fifty righteous within the city."*

I have to wonder if we realize this role of ours?  If so, do we balance it with an equal admiration and respect for those not of our faith?  Jacobs very powerfully asserts that

One thing is quite certain.  The idea of the chosen people does not mean that God is concerned only with the Jews.  Such a perverse idea would be entirely contrary to Jewish teaching, which, after all, believes in the God who created all people in His image.  Listen to this verse in the Bible (Isaiah 19:24–25).  To appreciate it fully one must realize that Egypt and Assyria, great powers with their own interests, were often at war with little Israel.  The prophet can still say: "In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria, a blessing in the midst of the earth for that the Lord of hosts hath blessed him, saying:  'Blessed be Egypt My people and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance.'...While Israel is called God's inheritance, Egypt is called His people and Assyria called the work of His hands.

How often, if ever, do we take this inclusive, universalistic view toward our brethren outside of the Church?  I would say far too infrequently.  I have to believe that the Father views all of His children as His children and loves all of us with a perfect equality.  Why, then, do we so unabashedly pedestal ourselves at the risk of lowering in esteem our brothers and sisters outside of the new and everlasting covenant?  Perhaps we would be better able to view all the earth with astonishment and awe, with passion and compassion, if we were better at seeing all as equal in the Lord?  For, as Jacobs says, "Nowhere is it suggested that other peoples have no role to play in God's plan for humanity."


*There's an article of this title by Professor Fred E. Woods about the life of Alexander Neibaur, who was the first known male Jewish convert to Mormonism.  The article in its entirety (which is amazing and highly recommended) can be downloaded from The Mormon Historical Studies Foundation here.

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Book Report Tuesdays!

Back when I was at American University, I was a TA for the leadership program (and man, if that program wasn't filled with Type A personalities!).  At the beginning of the year, we went to Antietam on our annual retreat and played all sorts of lame ice-breaker games that actually turned out to be kind of fun.  One of said games required the freshmen to put together little skits.  One of the scenarios gave the participants permission to parody the 5 TAs.  Skit after skit painted me as dog obsessed (I had a puppy at the time) and had references to me as a cult member (I had just joined the Church).  It was all in good fun, but it felt über hollow.

These days, I'm fully aware of my myriad Lauren-isms.  I know, for example, that it would be very, very easy for someone to make a parody of my life with ridiculous accuracy.  Already canonized are the "I was listening to this story on NPR the other day..." and "I was sitting in class and suddenly it hit me..." and (primarily with Mad) "There's an episode about this on How I Met Your Mother!" 

Today, I wish to submit another entry to the tome:  "I was reading in this book, and it said something that changed everything!"

That's a lot of lead up, I know, but it's so, so, so true.  And I kind of like LOVE it.

So, with said background, I have been reading The Book of Jewish Belief.  And my goodness, I am breathless.  There are SO many gems in this book that I have been highlighting those quotes that could have tumbled effortlessly from the Prophet's mouth himself.  Every.  Single.  Page.  has at least three or four lines underlined.

That being said, I also feel like this might tie in with one of my most resolute of goals for this year.  I proposed (and have thus far been mostly successful) in reading at least two books per month cover to cover.  I feel so inundated with knowledge and have felt so inspired in these efforts, which is great...but it is so the case that I feel as though a part of me is just dog-paddling in all of this input instead of incorporating it into my life.  I feel as though I have heretofore been unable to convert this knowledge into "dynamic fact" as Nels L. Nelson has said.*

So.  I propose this:  Book Report Tuesday.

Woah, woah, woah.  Book Report Tuesday?!

Okay, maybe I should revise that, because book reports are for sniffly second graders who just finished reading the latest installment of The Boxcar Children (if you're too young for that reference, I just don't want to know).  Perhaps we shall call it...what?  Literary Insight Tuesday?  Way too pretentious.

For now, we'll just stick with Book Report Tuesday.  With the caveat that I promise it won't be a plot review and instead will be more of what you're already used to getting from me...just based on the spiritual impressions I received in a book I happened to have read recently.

*Nels L. Nelson:  "Knowledge is only half of intelligence. To stop here is to be falsely educated. If, however, the truth perceived becomes a dynamic fact in a man's character; if it is incorporated into his mental attitude, and reacts immediately upon his life; if, in short, it ceases to be something in a man, and becomes the man himself, changing the very . . . [character] of his soul, then knowledge has passed over into power—or character—or wisdom—or, to adopt the term used by Joseph Smith, has passed over into intelligence; and it is such a process alone that represents true education." (Scientific Aspects of Mormonism)

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