Straightjackets and Guardrails

My podcast player went haywire, perhaps with the intervention of God, and I found myself listening to a very old discussion rather than my morning devotional. I would reference the source, but it is an old idea and I only heard a glancing reference to it.

The story goes that a municipality notices that much money is spent on ambulances reporting to deaths and injuries at the bottom of a high cliff from which many people fall.  An "out-of-the-box" thinker suggests that a guardrail or fence be put at the top of the cliff to prevent such falls in the first place and that the reduced cost of ambulance service would more than pay for the preventative.  I always considered this a lesson in prevention and economics, but the discussion to which I accidently listened was not so narrow in moral scope.

A broad concept, of which such things as socialism and neighborhoods were a part, was being discussed.  At its very heart, the people on the unintended podcast episode were talking about *safety* and the price of it. From the amiable discussion, everyone was convinced of safety's supernal importance and that no cost was too high for maximum safety.

The word "safety" has been bandied about much.  I recall President Trump saying on more than one occasion that this was a big part of a President's job, to ensure the safety of the nation. President Biden would likely attribute his enhanced desire for more safety, far more than Donald professed, to his presidential win. Like the discussion to which I was listening, there is no longer any argument about the centrality of safety in our lives, only the depth of expense society is willing to spend to aquire even more of it.

I have worked in hospitals and prisons, where straightjackets are sometimes used. In every case, the justification for putting a person in a straightjacket is "for their own safety".  It was a bit of a euphemism in prison, because it surely appeared that it was to control behavior and make others that had to deal with the straight-jacketed person feel more comfortable - it had little to do with the protection of the wearer and everything to do with the reducing the fear of others.

In the early stages of our current "public health" scare, society accepted what was touted as a few weeks of lockdown to get hospital services past the "surge" that might overwhelm them. That was more than a year ago and the stated justifications for continued restrictions have altered slightly, but they are still centered on a few societal fears that have swollen far beyond what is healthy or reasonable. Like the straightjacket, the people of our society are heavily constrained "for their own safety" just as the prisoners I knew. I don't really feel safer, nor do many others, and I never really asked for such a depth of safety, especially at the cost that so many have had to pay. We were promised that the "magic" vaccine would end the crisis, but it has not. There is a very real concern that the effective straightjacket placed on us by our well-meaning officials will never be removed because we will all be "safer" with this "new normal".  The continuation of this "public health" emergency has more to do with stoking the fear of the ignorant for power and gain than it does for the "safety" that our leaders seem to think is their job to provide.

Our nation's founding document, the Declaration of Independence, only mentions "safety" once. Our founding fathers rebelled against the smothering tyranny of a king over far fewer grievances and far lower taxes that we now toil under. Those men fought kings for the liberty that God had given them, where we ignore our God and plead with our leaders to enslave us afresh, all in the hope of a little "safety". We should put more faith in a God that wants our liberty rather than governments rife with corrupt people who scheme to profit from our fears.  Jehovah over Pfizer.

I would not be surprised if that old story about the guardrail across the cliff was created by an enterprising fence salesman.

Another Grand Conjunction

 I have just been hit by two "blasts from the past" that conjuncted a few days ago.

When I was in my late 20's, I took a very interesting job as a siesmic navigator on a boat for Petroleum Geoservices, better known as PGS.  I floated on exploration boats for two years and came back to on-shore work when the twins were going to be born.  That was late 1999.

Not too many years later, Lisa and I decided to look at going to graduate school in Shetland, an island group above Scotland. We worked hard to get the arrangements together, but the UK finally said they wouldn't approve a student visa for us, so that plan went down the drain.

Here, I see that a PGS ship, the Ramform Vangard, which was under constuction when I was working for the company, has had to have an extended stay in port at Lerwick (the capital of Shetland). I never thought much of the "Ramform" boats as they reminded me of luxury liners compared to the boats I worked on - they even had a European chef for meals where we settled for a failed Ukranian deckhand as a cook.

https://www.shetnews.co.uk/2021/04/14/crew-on-ship-docked-in-lerwick-in-quarantine-following-covid-cases/

  

The Redefinition of Respect

These days, it seems that there are demands for respect all around us. It seems like everyone, no matter what they do, are suddenly worthy of respect from everyone around them. This is confusing for me, perhaps because I am of a different generation and culture than most others around me.

I grew up with a very influential grandfather. Actually, he was my great uncle by marriage, but he later married my divorced grandmother and was the only grandfather that I knew on my mother's side of the family. He was hard-working, both kind and demanding, put others before himself, and served God with diligence. I remember most when he was often disappointed with me and wanted me to be more present in my surroundings. I ultimately respected his opinions and learned that when I disagreed with him, I tended to be wrong and he tended to be right. Even after his death, his advice to do technical work, which I rejected early on, turned out to be the right way to go and very lucative for me. When I think about "respect" these days, I think about him.

When social warriors insist that I show respect for infants, sexual or cultural perverts, or other unproven people, I get a sour taste in my mouth. I like infants - I was a preschool teacher for some years and enjoyed the experience very much. I don't think much of those who engage in various perversions, but I also don't wish them any ill and know that they have benefitted from my charitable contributions as I may have benefitted from theirs.  I hope they grow out of their brand of foolishness and that I do the same with mine. I want the best for others, but that is not "respect" to my mind.

I realize that I may offend the demands of others when I withhold my "respect" from swathes of people. I see a great difference in a neighborly attitude of "live and let live" and the individual honor that we may choose to bestow of respectability. 

As a religious volunteer at a prison, there was discussion of the idea of respect once, which had far more to do with fear and deference than what I felt for my grandfather. I was sometimes frightened and deferential to men grown monsterous through endless body-building incarceration, but I didn't respect them by following their examples or hanging onto each word of their felonous stories with a sense of longing. 

It makes me think of the "doublespeak" of Orwell's 1984 fame - the reduction of vocabulary to the point that no one can think of concepts outside of the will of the Party. It seems that more and more people want that world, one in which everyone is accorded respectability as if they are accomplished or of renown through just making a demand for such. It smacks of "participation awards" where people are cheered for simple existence and presence, except that now we are socially bludgeoned if we don't cheer loudly enough. The definition of respect is changed and rendered nearly the same meaning as base acknowledgement. "I am therefore I must be respected."

The troubling part is that the ancient accolades attached to respectability are expected to accrue to everyone now. We treat every babe and child as if they wrote a literary masterpiece or labored for decades to support a family while gaining valuable wisdom along the way. One no longer needs to do much of anything to be respected by others; others will respect you or else, harkening back to the fear of the muscled prison bruiser who will clobber you if you don't comply.

Our society has become quite threatening, reminiscent of the prison experiences I have had. I don't have much respect for society generally, much less for sycophantic governments that codify the worst elements of cultural degradation. The redefinition of "respect" is a thinly-veiled threat that we must vaunt the disrespectable and honor that which our ancestors found repugnant. It has less to do with a grandfather of high standards and more to do with a demanding and frightening thug. Which one wins?  

This Nation Will Never Fail

 I date myself all the time, more and more as time passes.

On October 26, 1974 (yes, I was 7 years old), then Prophet Harold B. Lee spoke at the Hart Auditorium (I watched "Star Wars" at that auditorium 12 years later as a college student) on the Ricks College campus (now BYU-I).  I bring this up because of all the talk that the United States may cease to exist and break into any number of countries based on party or ideology.  President Lee said this many years ago.

Men may fail in this country. Earthquakes may come; seas may heave themselves beyond their bounds; there may be great drought and disaster and hardships, but this nation, founded as it was on a foundation of principle laid down by men whom God raised up, will never fail. 

I got this from the Deseret News 1974 Church Almanac that I have in my front room. Times were hard forty-five years ago, and it is no better in 2020. However, we can hear the words of prophets of God.  It heartens me that our nation is going survive these days, as it has survived so many others. A prophet has said it and I, for one, will take it to the bank!

Jesus' Two Great Commandments

I fear some people misinterpret the Two Great Commandments that Jesus gave as a response to an interesting query. There is a temptation to overlay recent concepts of love on these two commandments and essentially reinterpret them in ways perhaps at variance with what was originally intended by the Lord.

Matthew 22:36-40

Master, which is the great commandment in the law?

Jesus said unto him, Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind.

This is the first and great commandment.

And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.

On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

The last verse says that the key to understanding everything else that has been revealed lies in the first two commandments.

The first commandment indicates an active and all-encompassing reverence for God, which I interpret as obedience-in-action to his commandments. As God doesn't force you to obey, the desire to keep his commandments must ultimately come from a place of total devotion (or love) rather than just the fickleness of fear and the avoidance of punishment. I say total devotion because the use of "with all thy..." a few times here - it seems you need that total commitment to gain the trenscendent goal of exaltation that God offers.

I fear that some combine the two great commandments together as if they both contain some unifying and singular definition of love. There are two commandments because two seperate things are being taught.

The second great commandment sounds much like the "golden rule" to me, as this from Matthew 7:12 - 

Therefore all things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, do ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets.

Note the repetition of "the law and the prophets". This shows that The Golden Rule is directly related to the Two Great Commandments. It doesn't make sense that it relates to our relationship with God as we can never return to God anything remotely close to what he has done for us. Therefore, it must be a reference to the second commandment, which works very well.  Treating your neighbor as you would like to be treated seems to be the manifestation of the love Jesus demands of us toward our fellow man.

I think a significant group of people read more into these than is healthy. God does not demand much of us through commandments (no matter the Jewish tradition of 600+ of them) and everyone can live their lives obediently, exempting those who lack accountability. However, in order to live these commandments throughout a long life, a dedication to God and his purposes are ultimately necessary, as the First Commandment indicates. 

Modern love has embraced the feminine and soft ministrations of mothers as the ultimate expression of love, to the excluding of nearly every other sort. Many people project this sort of love on God and Christ in a motherly and demanded protection from pain and suffering and (frankly) incovenience. I conjecture that many reject a traditional God because they don't understand his purposes and therefore totally discount the manifestations of his love through a well-provisioned Earth, a clear plan to Godly living, and a redemptive Atonement through Christ. Today, the work of fathers and men to provide and open opportunities and motivate, much in the vein of our God-father, is universally disparaged and many demand the acceptance of only totally emasculated boy-children. Many people, worshipping their "inner child"(ishness) and an undemanding Earth-goddess-mother to the exculsion of much else, prefer a soft and comforting blanket of "mommy-love" as opposed to the challenging opportunity of exaltation which the masculine God offers and which constitutes his love for us.

I love my mom. I love my wife and her mothering of both me and our children. However, I'm just as grateful for the different love and example of my father, who most certainly does not mother. Beyond that, I am even more grateful for my Heavenly Father, who gave each of us loving mothers for the bulk of our lives, but is the great example of that "push-you-along", rarely satisfied, and more fatherly love.

God is the ultimate example of a good father: setting expectations that his children can attain and challenging them to rise to those expectations. It is a masculine love, not tending to softness and too often overlooking curable faults. God's love is more a command to rise to our divine heritage and become more like Christ. This is sometimes described as "tough" love where transcendence to exaltation is the goal that is set before us. God loves us enough to put us on the upward path, make that way clear for us, and give us the resolve that we need to succeed. What an amazing Father!

The next time you read and think about the Two Great Commandments, I hope you consider different manifestations of love that could also fit into Christ's commandments to us.

That Didn't Work Out

A while back, I proposed that if some heckler calls you one (or several) of the currently trendy labels, such as "bigot" or "homophobe", usually as just a knee-jerk reaction to ideological difference, One should just say "so what" and move on.  As I read in the Book of Mormon today, Jesus Christ suggests his preferred response: 

3 Nephi 22:7

No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper; and every tongue that shall revile against thee in judgment thou shalt condemn. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord, and their righteousness is of me, saith the Lord.

I know that further trends in "kindspeak" instruct us to never say anything against people but only against actions, but as highlighted above, it sounds like Christ tells us to condemn those who revile us as if they stand in judgement over us. I suppose we can try to lessen the blow by condemning their "tongue", but my thought to just take the verbal blows are not what Jesus would have us do. It also really does look as though we are taught to condemn those who "revile against thee in judgment".

There have been a few, even friends, who have reviled against me and my posts, labeling me with all sorts of ignorantly misused yet trendily judgmental terms meant to silence detractors. As Jesus directs, I condemn those of you who vilify me as I work to spread the gospel of the Savior as I understand it.  Such people need to change through repentance.

I hope all take heart that Jesus Christ is ready to forgive the repentant and contrite person. May we all be grateful for this fact and seek the repentance we need!

The Doctrine of Christ

I understand and honor those who want to get to the heart of any matter set before them. I am also one that tends to brush away things that I consider ancillary to real purposes. In Christ's ministry in the holy land, he went to weddings and dinners; he socialized over the course of a three year ministry. In the land of Bountiful, as recorded in the Book of Mormon, Christ was only present for a handful of days, so we don't hear of his social schedule. He was rather purposeful and almost business-like. There was little time for things like parables, collecting new followers, or answering a lot of questions.

In one crucial incident, Christ did a clear progression of things in the first hours of his visit to the people at Bountiful, as described in the third book of Nephi, chapter 11:

1. God the Father announces and identifies Jesus and that he is the son of God (v. 3-7);
2. Jesus show each person that he was the promised and crucified Messiah who had been prophecied would come (v. 8-17);
3. Jesus calls Nephi and others and gives them the power to baptize (v. 18-22);
4. Jesus explains exactly how to perform a baptism and denounces (traditional Jewish) disputations on baptism and doctrine (v. 23-30);
5. The first rendition of the doctrine of Christ and his promise that the Holy Ghost will validate its truth (v. 31-36);
6. The second rendition of the doctrine of Christ (v. 37);
7. The third rendition of the doctrine of Christ (v. 38);
8. There is nothing more or less in the doctrine of Christ. Blessing to them that preach this as Christ's doctrine and punishments for those who teach other things as the doctrine of Christ (v. 39-40); and
9. Charge to Nephi and his brethren to go and teach these things. (v. 41)

There is a definite line of authority to baptise established, from God to Christ to Nephi and others. There is instruction on the authorized performance of the ordinance of baptism specifically to those newly authorized to perform it. There is a specific charge against speculation toward alteration of the baptism ordinance and the doctrine surrounding it. The doctrine of Christ is the singular importance of repentance and baptism to being saved and inheriting the kingdom of God, repeated three times. Finally, those authorized to baptize are instructed to preach the doctrine of repentance and baptism to everyone.

31 Behold, verily, verily, I say unto you, I will declare unto you my doctrine.

32 And this is my doctrine, and it is the doctrine which the Father hath given unto me; and I bear record of the Father, and the Father beareth record of me, and the Holy Ghost beareth record of the Father and me; and I bear record that the Father commandeth all men, everywhere, to repent and believe in me.

33 And whoso believeth in me, and is baptized, the same shall be saved; and they are they who shall inherit the kingdom of God.

34 And whoso believeth not in me, and is not baptized, shall be damned.

35 Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and I bear record of it from the Father; and whoso believeth in me believeth in the Father also; and unto him will the Father bear record of me, for he will visit him with fire and with the Holy Ghost.

36 And thus will the Father bear record of me, and the Holy Ghost will bear record unto him of the Father and me; for the Father, and I, and the Holy Ghost are bone.

37 And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and become as a little child, and be baptized in my name, or ye can in nowise receive these things.

38 And again I say unto you, ye must repent, and be baptized in my name, and become as a little child, or ye can in nowise inherit the kingdom of God.

39 Verily, verily, I say unto you, that this is my doctrine, and whoso buildeth upon this buildeth upon my rock, and the gates of hell shall not prevail against them.

40 And whoso shall declare more or less than this, and establish it for my doctrine, the same cometh of evil, and is not built upon my rock; but he buildeth upon a sandy foundation, and the gates of hell stand open to receive such when the floods come and the winds beat upon them.

41 Therefore, go forth unto this people, and declare the words which I have spoken, unto the ends of the earth.

I emphasized a phrase above because there is a strong tendency for many people to say that there is nothing more to Christ and Christianity than repentance and baptism. From my reading, this is the total sum of what needs to be done to be "saved" (how many different flavors of salvation are out there?), which is to inherit the kingdom of God. It doesn't mean there is not more to God or Christ, such as exaltation. It means that you cannot add other stipulations to salvation (as the Jews were known for), nor can you neuter or push aside any of the stated requirements, such as authoritative baptism (as some Christ-believing groups have done), and say you will still be saved. In this situation of short exposure, Christ was terribly clear and immediately repetitive on this doctrine!

Are there further blessings and opportunities that God offers us beyond this "salvation"? I strongly believe that there are, including transcendence toward exaltation, which is to become like God. I don't feel that anything said in this chapter or elsewhere in the Book of Mormon or Holy Bible proscribes or condemns such further opportunities.

What I hope to convey here is the central importance of baptism performed by those authorized to do it. For those who essentially do nothing, relying alone on the "love of Christ" to "save" them, and loudly proclaiming this concept, I can only say that Christ has already condemned such teaching and (lack of) practice and purveyors, as quoted vividly above! I will rather say this, as instructed by Christ: "Repent! Be baptized! Be saved!"