Continuing the idea from my previous post about notions: If people will
fight over their notion, or snap shot, of a single table, imagine dozens of
people in a room with dozens of tables. Try to reconcile each person’s notion
of each table with everyone else’s. It's impossible, If everyone takes a snapshot from their vantage point in the room and clings to it as the one and only way to view the room, you're going to have a lot of frustrated, scared and angry people:
"This blue table here is way bigger than that red table over there," says the lady next to the blue table.
"No, the red table is at least twice the size of the blue table," says the guy next to the red table.
"Hey, that black table in the middle of the room...that's a really pretty table," says someone else.
"What are you talking about? There is no black table in this room! There is only a purple table in the middle of the room!!" says the person whose view of the black table is blocked by a purple table.
Fighting ensues. Bad feelings, anger, antagonism, fear, shame, guilt, abound. And no one is even a tiny little bit closer to gaining accurate, increased understanding of the room by experiencing the room as the room really is. All of this could be avoided if people realized that their snapshot is not the ultimate definition of the room. A snapshot is not even the room at all. Only the room is the room. You can only see the room for what it is by throwing away your snapshot and leaving your vantage point to move around the room, by experiencing the room and every single table in it.
That’s the gospel. It's made of all of these solid and true principles, all these tables in the room. And that's what happens in the church when people are so invested in their notions of gospel principles. You get obstruction to understanding the table for itself; you get spiritual stagnation. And you get a whole lot of fighting and bad feeling: contention and people feeling angry, scared, ashamed, persecuted, self-righteous, domineering, and confused. What you don’t get is the Spirit. You don’t get insight, revelation, peace, love, light, truth. You don’t get God when everyone clings to their notions of what the gospel is, rather than releasing their notions and experiencing the gospel for what it is. And when you have so many disparate notions of the gospel, it’s even more important to the notion-holder to prove all of his or her notions as the be-all, end-all of all notions. Because the gospel is true and infallible and absolute, they feel their notions of it must be the be-all, end-all. That there’s only one way to interpret the gospel. And their interpretation, their notions, have to be right. Their salvation, they think, depends on it. So they must prove everyone else wrong, so that they can be right. They miss the point that the gospel is not notions. The gospel simply is. You can’t take a snapshot of the gospel and call it the gospel any more than you can take a snapshot of the table and call that the table, or of a room full of tables and call the picture the room. No, the table, the room, is over there, waiting for you to go over and experience it directly.
"This blue table here is way bigger than that red table over there," says the lady next to the blue table.
"No, the red table is at least twice the size of the blue table," says the guy next to the red table.
"Hey, that black table in the middle of the room...that's a really pretty table," says someone else.
"What are you talking about? There is no black table in this room! There is only a purple table in the middle of the room!!" says the person whose view of the black table is blocked by a purple table.
Fighting ensues. Bad feelings, anger, antagonism, fear, shame, guilt, abound. And no one is even a tiny little bit closer to gaining accurate, increased understanding of the room by experiencing the room as the room really is. All of this could be avoided if people realized that their snapshot is not the ultimate definition of the room. A snapshot is not even the room at all. Only the room is the room. You can only see the room for what it is by throwing away your snapshot and leaving your vantage point to move around the room, by experiencing the room and every single table in it.
That’s the gospel. It's made of all of these solid and true principles, all these tables in the room. And that's what happens in the church when people are so invested in their notions of gospel principles. You get obstruction to understanding the table for itself; you get spiritual stagnation. And you get a whole lot of fighting and bad feeling: contention and people feeling angry, scared, ashamed, persecuted, self-righteous, domineering, and confused. What you don’t get is the Spirit. You don’t get insight, revelation, peace, love, light, truth. You don’t get God when everyone clings to their notions of what the gospel is, rather than releasing their notions and experiencing the gospel for what it is. And when you have so many disparate notions of the gospel, it’s even more important to the notion-holder to prove all of his or her notions as the be-all, end-all of all notions. Because the gospel is true and infallible and absolute, they feel their notions of it must be the be-all, end-all. That there’s only one way to interpret the gospel. And their interpretation, their notions, have to be right. Their salvation, they think, depends on it. So they must prove everyone else wrong, so that they can be right. They miss the point that the gospel is not notions. The gospel simply is. You can’t take a snapshot of the gospel and call it the gospel any more than you can take a snapshot of the table and call that the table, or of a room full of tables and call the picture the room. No, the table, the room, is over there, waiting for you to go over and experience it directly.
When
we bear our testimonies in testimony meeting or to each other, what we’re
ideally sharing is our direct insight and experience with God and the gospel.
You feel the Spirit witness to you that what you or someone is saying is true.
That is direct experience with God. You can’t get a testimony from someone else’s
experiences, but their experiences can trigger some thought or action in you
that leads to your own insight and testimony.
When someone
shares their testimony, you have to assume that they are sharing genuine, heartfelt,
spiritual insight and experience. It’s not your responsibility to “keep them
honest” by accusing them, out loud, on the internet, or in your heart, of
ulterior motives or disingenuousness or lying. It is your responsibility to keep yourself
honest. This is especially important when what you’re hearing makes you
uncomfortable. Is this the Spirit telling you that what you’re hearing is
wrong? Or is it that you have a dearly-held notion that is being threatened?
Remember, a notion is not the thing itself. It is misleading and dangerous, an
obstruction to further spiritual growth, understanding, faith, and knowledge.
Notions do not lead to salvation, so there’s no reason to cling to them and
defend them at the cost of real growth and knowledge, or at the risk of engaging
in contention. “Contention is of the devil” (3 Nephi 11:39), so where contention
is, there the devil is. Where contention is, there God is not. Rather, “God
hath not given us the spirit of fear, but of power, and of love, and of a sound
mind” (2 Timothy 1:7).
In my
experience, when my notion comes under attack, I feel scared. Scared to death
that my notion, upon which I’ve hung my faith, is wrong. And if it’s wrong, my
salvation is at stake. When this happens, the only way forward, the only way to
have real, founded, living faith and understanding, is to throw out your notion
and go to the thing itself. Throw away your snapshot of the table and go to the
table itself so you can see and experience it for what it is. Or, to be explicit in my analogy, throw out
your notion of whatever gospel principle you’re feeling fear over. Go back to
the scriptures, to God, go and experience it as itself. Then you will have a
foundation for real and living faith, in the thing itself, not on a fundamentally useless notion that
you’ve created for yourself. Then you will have a spirit of power, of love, and
of a sound mind.
This
is my story of tackling a particular “table” that is quite popular in church
conversation at the moment: women and the priesthood. When I first heard a
sister talk about women having the priesthood, I was shocked, slightly offended,
and incredibly scared. “The priesthood is for men. Men are the priesthood,” my
mind sputtered. But, knowing that fear and faith cannot coexist, I took the
issue back to the source. I studied the scriptures. I prayed. I was blessed
with promptings, insight, inspiration, peace, and love. It has been an unending
round of pure intelligence, and
“When you feel
pure intelligence flowing into you, it may give you sudden strokes of ideas, so
that by noticing it, you may find it fulfilled the same day or soon; (i.e.)
those things that were presented unto your minds by the Spirit of God, will
come to pass; and thus by learning the Spirit of God and understanding it, you
may grow into the principle of revelation, until you become perfect in Christ
Jesus” (Teachings of the Prophet Joseph
Smith, sel. Joseph Fielding Smith [1976], 151).
This whole
process of studying the issue of women with the priesthood has strengthened my
relationship with God. I have had ideas and scriptures brought to my mind as I’ve
studied it. I have felt the Spirit. I have felt peace, confidence, and love. I
have felt God. It has increased my understanding of His nature, and of the
nature of mortality, exaltation, of ultimate reality as a whole. I am confident
that women will have the priesthood someday. Let me share with you my
testimony, what I’ve learned and experienced through the Spirit. I pray to do
so with the Spirit, thoughtfully, and with love.
And I’ll do my
best to keep my own snapshots out of it. J
I imagine you will find favor with the following quotation then:
ReplyDelete"Respecting females administering for the healing of the sick, he [Joseph Smith] further remarked, there could be no devil in it, if God gave His sanction by healing; that there could be no more sin in any female laying hands on and praying for the sick, than in wetting the face with water; it is no sin for anybody to administer that has faith, or if the sick have faith to be healed by their administration."
History of the Church, Volume 4, Page 604 (https://byustudies.byu.edu/hc/4/36.html)
Yes, thank you for the source! I did a little Googling on it because I'd heard it discussed. It seems like that practice was officially discouraged with Joseph Fielding Smith. It makes me think about how Joseph Smith ordained black men to the priesthood, then it became banned, then came the 1978 expansion of the priesthood.
ReplyDelete