I won't say where this story happened so that I can preserve the identity of those involved.
In my mission there was a senior couple, the Elder and Sister Wilcox, who were serving as missionaries. Shortly after they arrived Elder Wilcox was asked to serve as a counselor in the Mission Presidency. This meant that he would travel to the various District Conferences (like Stake Conferences) where the Mission President was unable to attend (we had about 15 districts in our mission). It was during one of these conferences that I was asked to accompany Elder Wilcox in an interview. He was not very proficient in Spanish and needed someone to translate for him.
The man Elder Wilcox was going to interview was someone who had been a member for many years but recently had been disfellowshipped. The purpose of the interview was to sort out the problems and to see if the man could return to full fellowship in the Church.
The interview began as a simple fact finding procedure, "So what is your story? When you were disfellowshipped by the District Presidency what were the reasons they told you? What have you done about it?" etc. According to this man's version of events, he was disfellowshipped for having a general disagreement with the local church leaders. Basically what it came down to was they, the church leaders, didn't like him, and he didn't like them so they told him that he couldn't use his priesthood and that he couldn't hold a calling.
Since I was only there as an interpreter and a facilitator I didn't have any say in the matter, and I will refrain from making any statement about who was right other than what Elder Wilcox ultimately decided.
To back up his case he said that he was a good man who did many good things. He said that he took care of his children, even those who were not strictly his children. He mentioned that before he met his wife she had worked as a prostitute and had three children from that. When he married her he took those children as his own and raised them accordingly. He was even sealed to them in the temple (which in this part of Argentina, to have a family like that who had been to the temple was very rare). He used this and other examples to make the case that he was a good man who tried to live within the covenants and commandments.
He then made the case that the District President was not so holy (they were neighbors). He related an experience where he said that he saw the District President beat one of his children in a rather harsh manner. He said that his being disfellowshipped was simply a result of the District President projecting his own sins and failing on him.
After listening to all of this, and after I made sure that Elder Wilcox had understood everything that had been said, Elder Wilcox paused, bowed his head as if in prayer or contemplation for a moment. Then he raised his head, looked the man in the eye and in flawless Spanish told the man, "You need to repent! The problem here is that you have not forgiven your wife! That is what you need to repent of!"
The man was rather taken back, because up until now this had all been about the dispute between him and the District President, but the thought that the real problem was one between this man and his wife had never occurred to him.
Elder Wilcox continued on and explained, "You have never forgiven your wife for the things she did before she met you. You said that she worked as a prostitute before she met you, and you said that you married her anyway. You said that you brought her to church, along with her children who were born of her prostitution, and that this made you a good man. She has been baptized, she has gone to the temple and wears the holy garment."
"The Lord has forgiven her her sins and remembers them no more. But you still remember them and you still think of her being defined by her past sins. You should not have mentioned them or even brought them up. You will not be forgiven until you humble yourself and never speak of her past sins any more. She has given them up, and the Lord has accepted her repentance. Now you need to accept her change of life."
When the man heard this he was left almost speechless. He said that no one had ever told him that. He didn't realize that his perception of his wife was having such a profound impact on him and how he viewed others. In a moment his entire demeanor changed. Whereas before he seemed to be inflated with pride and wounded pride as having been disfellowshipped, be was now immensely humble and contrite. It was as if in a moment all his pride was stripped away from him. He promised that he would forgive his wife, and that he would never again mention her past sins. The issue between him and the District President was not even mentioned again. Due to the force of the Spirit that accompanied Elder Wilcox's admonition he had experienced a sudden and dramatic change of heart.
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Monday, August 5, 2013
Stories from My Mission: The Butcher Fist Bump
I thought I should share a some what shorter and lighter story after my last two.
In my first area of Bella Vista there were many things that I had to learn about Argentina. One of the minor things that I had to pick up was how butchers greeted people. Because they work with meat their hands are usually covered in meat juices, and everyone else's hands are well, covered in who knows what. So butchers don't shake hands. What they do instead is extend their hand in a fist are you are expected to grab their forearm just above the wrist and "shake" their hand.
The first time I met a butcher and he extended his closed fist to me I had no idea what I was supposed to do. So I did the only thing I could think of, I gave him a fist bump. My companion, Elder Tenny, busted up laughing and the butcher was very confused, and I had no idea what was going on. Elder Tenny thankfully took the time to explain to the butcher what I had done and to explain to me the proper way of "shaking hands" with a butcher. I still think my way is better.
In my first area of Bella Vista there were many things that I had to learn about Argentina. One of the minor things that I had to pick up was how butchers greeted people. Because they work with meat their hands are usually covered in meat juices, and everyone else's hands are well, covered in who knows what. So butchers don't shake hands. What they do instead is extend their hand in a fist are you are expected to grab their forearm just above the wrist and "shake" their hand.
The first time I met a butcher and he extended his closed fist to me I had no idea what I was supposed to do. So I did the only thing I could think of, I gave him a fist bump. My companion, Elder Tenny, busted up laughing and the butcher was very confused, and I had no idea what was going on. Elder Tenny thankfully took the time to explain to the butcher what I had done and to explain to me the proper way of "shaking hands" with a butcher. I still think my way is better.
Sunday, August 4, 2013
Stories from My Mission: The things you don't tell your parents about. (Part 1)
I will go ahead and label this post "Part 1" since there were many things that happened to me on my mission that I, um, just didn't write home about. Not because I had done anything wrong, but there were just the little things that happened that I never told them because I really didn't want to make my parents worry about me. I have no idea how many of these stories I have. I did tell my parents some of my big stories, like being bitten by a dog, breaking my rib, or being robbed on the street, but there were all the other little stories that I didn't bother to write them about.
In my fourth area in the city of Eldorado I had one companion, Elder Caballero, who I was with for one transfer (before I was "emergency transferred" out of the area during a normal transfer, but that is another story. Wait, I don't think I ever told my parents about that one... I told them about my first emergency transfer that brought me to Eldorado, but I don't think I ever told them about why I had to leave Eldorado...oops. Anyway back to my normal story.) So, Elder Caballero was a very outspoken Paraguayan who always made it clear what he thought about things. In Paraguay they speak both Spanish and Guarani so he was obviously fluent in both. I on the other hand only knew how to say 5 or 6 words in Guarani, and two of them were "jagua piru" which means "skinny dog", so in other words, I knew nothing in Guarani. In the city of Eldorado about a third of the people were Paraguayans, and thus there were a lot of people who spoke Guarani.
One day after returning from a mission conference in Posadas, we were getting off the bus and my companion bumped into a woman as he was walking down the aisle of the bus. He turned towards her and said, "Excuse me." and then moved on and didn't think any more about what had happened. We were walking down the street about 2 hours later when a man approached us. All of the talking that happened next happened in Guarani so I didn't understand a word of it, but I could understand the man's tone. My companion explained afterwards what he had said.
We almost walked right past each other on the street but at the last moment the man turned and planted himself in front of my companion. He pointed his finger at my companion's chest and asked him if he was the one who had disrespected the woman on the bus. My companion was at first confused, but the man said that he remembered seeing my companion step on the woman's foot on the bus earlier. My companion said he was unaware of the fact that he had stepped on her foot but he said he was sorry about it. The man was not placated and continued to accuse him harshly with his finger now pointed directly at my companions face.
It was at this point that I noticed the ring on the man's finger. It was, shall we say, bone white and had a swastika carved into it. There was something about the man that was very unsettling. He continued to accuse my companion of "disrespecting" the woman and my companion continued to apologize profusely. The man was insisting that my companion would have to do something to satisfy her "wounded honor", and the general implication was that it would somehow involve a knife. My companion, Elder Caballero, who I had seen stand up to toughs on the street, listened to him talk big and would let nothing diminish his honor was obviously disturbed by the man's accusations and was trying to apologize and placate the man as best he could.
Eventually the man was satisfied with what ever my companion told him and with a parting warning he walked off. After the man left Elder Caballero explained to me what the man had said. My companion also told be about how in Paraguay someone's honor is a very serious thing, and to violate someone's honor could provoke serious consequences. My companion knew people who had been knifed over wounded honor (for example, my companion's full last name was Caballero-Ruiz Dias, but he only went by Caballero since another family in Paraguay had a blood feud with the Ruiz Dias family). So for my companion when the man accused him of dishonoring the woman on the bus, this was a very serious thing, especially considering the man's, um, shall we say, choice in jewelry. We were both a little shaken by the experience.
We explained what happened to our branch president. He was concerned but there was nothing he could do. We told our zone leader and mentioned it to the Elders in the mission office, they filed it away behind all the robbings, and kidnappings that happened in my mission (we averaged about one companionship per year was kidnapped/held hostage and robbed per year, which doesn't include all the street muggings at knife/gun point which happened every two or three months or so...something else I never mentioned to my parents...). Since there really wasn't much we could do we just chose to ignore it. Fortunately we never saw that man again.
In my fourth area in the city of Eldorado I had one companion, Elder Caballero, who I was with for one transfer (before I was "emergency transferred" out of the area during a normal transfer, but that is another story. Wait, I don't think I ever told my parents about that one... I told them about my first emergency transfer that brought me to Eldorado, but I don't think I ever told them about why I had to leave Eldorado...oops. Anyway back to my normal story.) So, Elder Caballero was a very outspoken Paraguayan who always made it clear what he thought about things. In Paraguay they speak both Spanish and Guarani so he was obviously fluent in both. I on the other hand only knew how to say 5 or 6 words in Guarani, and two of them were "jagua piru" which means "skinny dog", so in other words, I knew nothing in Guarani. In the city of Eldorado about a third of the people were Paraguayans, and thus there were a lot of people who spoke Guarani.
One day after returning from a mission conference in Posadas, we were getting off the bus and my companion bumped into a woman as he was walking down the aisle of the bus. He turned towards her and said, "Excuse me." and then moved on and didn't think any more about what had happened. We were walking down the street about 2 hours later when a man approached us. All of the talking that happened next happened in Guarani so I didn't understand a word of it, but I could understand the man's tone. My companion explained afterwards what he had said.
We almost walked right past each other on the street but at the last moment the man turned and planted himself in front of my companion. He pointed his finger at my companion's chest and asked him if he was the one who had disrespected the woman on the bus. My companion was at first confused, but the man said that he remembered seeing my companion step on the woman's foot on the bus earlier. My companion said he was unaware of the fact that he had stepped on her foot but he said he was sorry about it. The man was not placated and continued to accuse him harshly with his finger now pointed directly at my companions face.
It was at this point that I noticed the ring on the man's finger. It was, shall we say, bone white and had a swastika carved into it. There was something about the man that was very unsettling. He continued to accuse my companion of "disrespecting" the woman and my companion continued to apologize profusely. The man was insisting that my companion would have to do something to satisfy her "wounded honor", and the general implication was that it would somehow involve a knife. My companion, Elder Caballero, who I had seen stand up to toughs on the street, listened to him talk big and would let nothing diminish his honor was obviously disturbed by the man's accusations and was trying to apologize and placate the man as best he could.
Eventually the man was satisfied with what ever my companion told him and with a parting warning he walked off. After the man left Elder Caballero explained to me what the man had said. My companion also told be about how in Paraguay someone's honor is a very serious thing, and to violate someone's honor could provoke serious consequences. My companion knew people who had been knifed over wounded honor (for example, my companion's full last name was Caballero-Ruiz Dias, but he only went by Caballero since another family in Paraguay had a blood feud with the Ruiz Dias family). So for my companion when the man accused him of dishonoring the woman on the bus, this was a very serious thing, especially considering the man's, um, shall we say, choice in jewelry. We were both a little shaken by the experience.
We explained what happened to our branch president. He was concerned but there was nothing he could do. We told our zone leader and mentioned it to the Elders in the mission office, they filed it away behind all the robbings, and kidnappings that happened in my mission (we averaged about one companionship per year was kidnapped/held hostage and robbed per year, which doesn't include all the street muggings at knife/gun point which happened every two or three months or so...something else I never mentioned to my parents...). Since there really wasn't much we could do we just chose to ignore it. Fortunately we never saw that man again.
Stories from My Mission: "She is in the twilight of her day of grace."
This story is perhaps a little more sensitive than most. Do not judge any of the people involved too harshly. The true nature of this story can only be understood if you have a truly eternal perspective of the nature of our existence, and of eternal progression. Also realize that what I write here is only a small part of what happened, thus be mindful of that when deciding whether the actions of everyone involved were justified or not. Some times I wonder about whether or not some of my actions were correct or not.
I will not say where or when this happened and I will try to keep it as anonymous as possible.
Sometime after arriving in my new area I met the family, which consisted of the mother, two daughters and a son. The two younger children, a boy and a girl, were already members of the Church but I only recall seeing them attend church a few times while I was in the area. I never found out anything about the father. The home situation was shall we say, less than ideal. The mother had health and mental issues which meant that she could not work very much, the eldest daughter had previously worked as a prostitute and had been forced to stop working due to her getting pregnant (and had been unwilling to get an abortion).
From what I could gather the family had been meeting off and on with the missionaries for about 5 or 6 years. The two youngest children had been baptized about a year before I got to the area, but the oldest daughter had not been baptized due to her profession, and the mother, well, that is the point of this story.
With my first companion we made a few visits to the family, but it was not until my second companion was in the area that things started to change. We were meeting more with the oldest daughter, partly because she was coming to the realization that her choice of profession was not a very good one and was making an honest effort to change, partly for her own sake but also because she realized that she didn't want her own child to grow up like her and viewed the Church as the best way of protecting her unborn child.
Every time we visited the mother would insist on telling us that she knew the Book of Mormon was the word of God and that Joseph Smith was his prophet, but when ever we asked her to come to church he answers would be evasive and inconsistent. We encouraged, prodded, cajoled, joked, exhorted and commanded, but she never came to church. Try as we might we couldn't get her to make the effort to come to sacrament meeting. She kept telling us that she knew she needed to get baptized and she even informed us that if she could get baptized then there were some things about her life that could get fixed.
There never was any indication that there were any major sins (i.e. prostitution, drugs, tobacco, alcohol, murder etc.) that prevented the mother from getting baptized so we were a bit baffled as to why she would never come to church. There always seemed to be some excuse (i.e. it rained, it was hot/cold, she was sick, her legs hurt, they had to go visit their cousin etc.).
During all of this I felt the need to keep visiting them. It was not a strong feeling or an impulsive feeling, just a gentle feeling that I should keep stopping by. All this came to a head when my third companion got to the area. Of my three companions in the area my second companion had the greatest rapport with the family. My third companion, not so much. After just a few weeks my companion was getting impatient with them and began making comments about how we shouldn't waste any more time visiting them. But I had seen how desperately the mother and daughter had wanted to change their lives and I just wanted to be there when they finally decided to take the first step.
I visited the family a few times with my new companion but I he was getting more and more impatient with them and with me. Things fell apart one night when we went to visit them and my companion insisted that we have some members there with us (getting members to help us out was not the easiest thing on my mission). This meant that we were late getting there and when we did arrive something about the family was very off. The eldest daughter was upset with us because we were late and yelled at us (with two Aaronic priesthood boys aged 14 and 16 who were with us, the only ones we could find on short notice).
After the yelling stopped the mother came out and was visibly upset with us, and while she spoke to us from her front porch she became more and more incoherent at some point she went back into her house, but didn't get very far when she was overcome by some type of epileptic seizure. I saw her start to seize up and I sprang into action. I dashed through the front door and with the help of her oldest daughter we got her sitting in a chair. Her convulsions were not very violent, but she was unable to speak. My companion, who had wanted nothing to do with the family, stayed outside even refusing to set foot in the house, even when I asked him to come help me give her a blessing. Because my companion was refusing to come in and I was unsure what to do I went ahead and placed my hands on her head and gave her a blessing.
I don't know what I was expecting, perhaps something miraculous, but instead she got worse. Again with the help of her daughter we were able to carry her into her room and lay her down on her bed. After a while her condition improved and she motioned to us to get a Book of Mormon that she kept on her bedside table. She took it and held it close to her chest and when she did that she seemed to calm down a bit more. After a while she was able to speak again and told me that when she gets bad she uses the Book of Mormon to calm her fits. She said that only the word of God could cure her of her ailment.
After making sure that she would be fine I exited the house and rejoined my companion, who had been standing outside, along with the two young men who were looking very awkward. As we walked away I told the two boys that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to talk about what had happened. I told them that it was OK to tell their parents but no one else. My companion didn't say anything until we got home. I don't remember what he said exactly but one thing he said was that he would never return to visit that house. This put me in a predicament because I suddenly felt a stronger need to visit them again to resolve some things that came up. Not knowing what to do I contacted my zone leader to see what he had to say. He agreed to come to the area so that he and I could visit with the family so that he could make an assessment of the situation.
Approximately a week later my zone leader came to our area and I went with him to visit the family. He spoke to the mother and all the children. He asked about their desires to get baptized, or whether those who were baptized would come to church. There were no dramatics or apparent problems. He couldn't figure out why the mother wouldn't come to church, the eldest daughter on the other hand was about 7 months pregnant at that point and had a hard time making it all the way to church. After meeting with them he said that he didn't find anything majorly wrong with them, except for the fact that the mother who had spent 6 years meeting with the missionaries had never come to church, despite her insistence on knowing that it was true, and that it would help her.
Shortly after this the mother did make the trek all the way to church, but only after the meetings were all done and the only person there was the branch president and his one counselor. She came asking the branch president for a blessing and he obliged. Because I was not present at the time what happened next was told to me by the branch president. In the middle of giving her a blessing she entered into one of her fits. The branch president said that when this happened he felt something wrong with her, beyond the obvious medical or mental issues, and was given to know by the Spirit that she was possessed by an evil spirit. So right then and there he exorcised the evil spirit from her. She calmed down significantly after he did that.
After this happened he met with me and we discussed everything that had happened. After much discussion he decided to go with me, and me alone because my companion refused to go, to visit the family because both he and I felt it necessary. It was in this meeting that the branch president told me something about the mother that I had not known previously. Before meeting the missionaries and coming in contact with the Church the mother, but not any of her children, had attended a certain Assembly of God church in the city. This particular denomination was known by the missionaries, due to the number of run-ins that we had with its members and pastors. There seemed to be at least one of this particular strand of Pentecostal church in every area that I lived in and no one seemed to every have anything good to say about them.
While this church was affiliated with the Assemblies of God movement that started in the US in the early 1900's, the particular sub-denomination that the mother attended was of a variety that had started independently in Brazil. They were known for being more extreme in their displays of "being filled with the spirit" and "speaking in tongues" than all the other Assemblies of God churches. The branch president told me that he had heard very bad things about that church and that most of the people who had spent any amount of time there end up being very messed up. That is apparently what happened to the mother, and somewhere along the way she had become possessed.
Shortly after this I went with the branch president to visit the family so that he could make an assessment about how the two children who were members of the Church were doing and to get an idea of what the eldest daughter was like, and to meet with the mother again. We both knew that we needed to go. So I left my companion with another priesthood holder (he was still upset that I was going to visit the family) and went with the branch president to meet the family.
I had been thinking a great deal about what had been going on and I was wondering why I felt the need to keep visiting the family. While meeting the family with the branch president was uneventful as we left we were talking about the situation and wondering what to do. That is when I received the key insight about the whole situation and shared it with the branch president. I didn't have the proper words to say it in Spanish so I had to first ask the branch president for the proper word. What I told him was, "She is in the twilight of her day of grace." When I said this he turned and looked back at their house as we walked away and paused, nodded and expressed regret that we had to see this.
What we both realized is that the mother had been given many, many opportunities to accept the truth. But she had made conscious decisions that resulted in many of her problems. Because she continued to refuse to come to church, despite all her experiences, she was quickly approaching the end of her day of grace when she would have no more opportunities to accept Jesus Christ. Not in this life or the next. This was her last chance, and the reason why I was prompted to be there (along with the branch president after my companion refused to go) was to bear witness of the twilight of her day of grace. She never did come to church. He two youngest did start coming again after I left, but she never did.
I will not say where or when this happened and I will try to keep it as anonymous as possible.
Sometime after arriving in my new area I met the family, which consisted of the mother, two daughters and a son. The two younger children, a boy and a girl, were already members of the Church but I only recall seeing them attend church a few times while I was in the area. I never found out anything about the father. The home situation was shall we say, less than ideal. The mother had health and mental issues which meant that she could not work very much, the eldest daughter had previously worked as a prostitute and had been forced to stop working due to her getting pregnant (and had been unwilling to get an abortion).
From what I could gather the family had been meeting off and on with the missionaries for about 5 or 6 years. The two youngest children had been baptized about a year before I got to the area, but the oldest daughter had not been baptized due to her profession, and the mother, well, that is the point of this story.
With my first companion we made a few visits to the family, but it was not until my second companion was in the area that things started to change. We were meeting more with the oldest daughter, partly because she was coming to the realization that her choice of profession was not a very good one and was making an honest effort to change, partly for her own sake but also because she realized that she didn't want her own child to grow up like her and viewed the Church as the best way of protecting her unborn child.
Every time we visited the mother would insist on telling us that she knew the Book of Mormon was the word of God and that Joseph Smith was his prophet, but when ever we asked her to come to church he answers would be evasive and inconsistent. We encouraged, prodded, cajoled, joked, exhorted and commanded, but she never came to church. Try as we might we couldn't get her to make the effort to come to sacrament meeting. She kept telling us that she knew she needed to get baptized and she even informed us that if she could get baptized then there were some things about her life that could get fixed.
There never was any indication that there were any major sins (i.e. prostitution, drugs, tobacco, alcohol, murder etc.) that prevented the mother from getting baptized so we were a bit baffled as to why she would never come to church. There always seemed to be some excuse (i.e. it rained, it was hot/cold, she was sick, her legs hurt, they had to go visit their cousin etc.).
During all of this I felt the need to keep visiting them. It was not a strong feeling or an impulsive feeling, just a gentle feeling that I should keep stopping by. All this came to a head when my third companion got to the area. Of my three companions in the area my second companion had the greatest rapport with the family. My third companion, not so much. After just a few weeks my companion was getting impatient with them and began making comments about how we shouldn't waste any more time visiting them. But I had seen how desperately the mother and daughter had wanted to change their lives and I just wanted to be there when they finally decided to take the first step.
I visited the family a few times with my new companion but I he was getting more and more impatient with them and with me. Things fell apart one night when we went to visit them and my companion insisted that we have some members there with us (getting members to help us out was not the easiest thing on my mission). This meant that we were late getting there and when we did arrive something about the family was very off. The eldest daughter was upset with us because we were late and yelled at us (with two Aaronic priesthood boys aged 14 and 16 who were with us, the only ones we could find on short notice).
After the yelling stopped the mother came out and was visibly upset with us, and while she spoke to us from her front porch she became more and more incoherent at some point she went back into her house, but didn't get very far when she was overcome by some type of epileptic seizure. I saw her start to seize up and I sprang into action. I dashed through the front door and with the help of her oldest daughter we got her sitting in a chair. Her convulsions were not very violent, but she was unable to speak. My companion, who had wanted nothing to do with the family, stayed outside even refusing to set foot in the house, even when I asked him to come help me give her a blessing. Because my companion was refusing to come in and I was unsure what to do I went ahead and placed my hands on her head and gave her a blessing.
I don't know what I was expecting, perhaps something miraculous, but instead she got worse. Again with the help of her daughter we were able to carry her into her room and lay her down on her bed. After a while her condition improved and she motioned to us to get a Book of Mormon that she kept on her bedside table. She took it and held it close to her chest and when she did that she seemed to calm down a bit more. After a while she was able to speak again and told me that when she gets bad she uses the Book of Mormon to calm her fits. She said that only the word of God could cure her of her ailment.
After making sure that she would be fine I exited the house and rejoined my companion, who had been standing outside, along with the two young men who were looking very awkward. As we walked away I told the two boys that it probably wouldn't be a good idea to talk about what had happened. I told them that it was OK to tell their parents but no one else. My companion didn't say anything until we got home. I don't remember what he said exactly but one thing he said was that he would never return to visit that house. This put me in a predicament because I suddenly felt a stronger need to visit them again to resolve some things that came up. Not knowing what to do I contacted my zone leader to see what he had to say. He agreed to come to the area so that he and I could visit with the family so that he could make an assessment of the situation.
Approximately a week later my zone leader came to our area and I went with him to visit the family. He spoke to the mother and all the children. He asked about their desires to get baptized, or whether those who were baptized would come to church. There were no dramatics or apparent problems. He couldn't figure out why the mother wouldn't come to church, the eldest daughter on the other hand was about 7 months pregnant at that point and had a hard time making it all the way to church. After meeting with them he said that he didn't find anything majorly wrong with them, except for the fact that the mother who had spent 6 years meeting with the missionaries had never come to church, despite her insistence on knowing that it was true, and that it would help her.
Shortly after this the mother did make the trek all the way to church, but only after the meetings were all done and the only person there was the branch president and his one counselor. She came asking the branch president for a blessing and he obliged. Because I was not present at the time what happened next was told to me by the branch president. In the middle of giving her a blessing she entered into one of her fits. The branch president said that when this happened he felt something wrong with her, beyond the obvious medical or mental issues, and was given to know by the Spirit that she was possessed by an evil spirit. So right then and there he exorcised the evil spirit from her. She calmed down significantly after he did that.
After this happened he met with me and we discussed everything that had happened. After much discussion he decided to go with me, and me alone because my companion refused to go, to visit the family because both he and I felt it necessary. It was in this meeting that the branch president told me something about the mother that I had not known previously. Before meeting the missionaries and coming in contact with the Church the mother, but not any of her children, had attended a certain Assembly of God church in the city. This particular denomination was known by the missionaries, due to the number of run-ins that we had with its members and pastors. There seemed to be at least one of this particular strand of Pentecostal church in every area that I lived in and no one seemed to every have anything good to say about them.
While this church was affiliated with the Assemblies of God movement that started in the US in the early 1900's, the particular sub-denomination that the mother attended was of a variety that had started independently in Brazil. They were known for being more extreme in their displays of "being filled with the spirit" and "speaking in tongues" than all the other Assemblies of God churches. The branch president told me that he had heard very bad things about that church and that most of the people who had spent any amount of time there end up being very messed up. That is apparently what happened to the mother, and somewhere along the way she had become possessed.
Shortly after this I went with the branch president to visit the family so that he could make an assessment about how the two children who were members of the Church were doing and to get an idea of what the eldest daughter was like, and to meet with the mother again. We both knew that we needed to go. So I left my companion with another priesthood holder (he was still upset that I was going to visit the family) and went with the branch president to meet the family.
I had been thinking a great deal about what had been going on and I was wondering why I felt the need to keep visiting the family. While meeting the family with the branch president was uneventful as we left we were talking about the situation and wondering what to do. That is when I received the key insight about the whole situation and shared it with the branch president. I didn't have the proper words to say it in Spanish so I had to first ask the branch president for the proper word. What I told him was, "She is in the twilight of her day of grace." When I said this he turned and looked back at their house as we walked away and paused, nodded and expressed regret that we had to see this.
What we both realized is that the mother had been given many, many opportunities to accept the truth. But she had made conscious decisions that resulted in many of her problems. Because she continued to refuse to come to church, despite all her experiences, she was quickly approaching the end of her day of grace when she would have no more opportunities to accept Jesus Christ. Not in this life or the next. This was her last chance, and the reason why I was prompted to be there (along with the branch president after my companion refused to go) was to bear witness of the twilight of her day of grace. She never did come to church. He two youngest did start coming again after I left, but she never did.
Sunday, June 30, 2013
Stories from My Mission: The Spirit of Discernment
This story is perhaps a little different from the others that I have so far shared. It is a little more personal and deals with the spirit of discernment. The spirit of discernment is one of the spiritual gifts listed in D&C 46 (actually more properly the discerning of spirits) which in my experience is the ability to discern the disposition and unspoken thoughts of any spirit, both embodied and disembodied spirits. It is a rare and powerful gift that should not be taken lightly.
This story took place in the city of Barranqueras, my last area of my mission. It was perhaps my second or third week in the area since I was just getting to know everything but I was not yet familiar with all of our investigators. There was one particular family that we had visited maybe once or twice, always very late in the evening when it was very dark out. In order to get to their house we would walk down the levee that kept the Río Paraná from flooding the city, and then just past the local soda pop bottling plant we would drop down into a very dark neighborhood (the same one where I later met and taught the local crime boss).
My companion had been teaching this family for some time before I got to the area, and when I arrived we had had one or two visits with a minimal amount of teaching. We then had a period of time where we could not find them at home because of illness and other things, until one day we managed to set a date to visit with them and have a real charla (missionary lesson). We arrived at their house at about 8:00 at night. The husband was finishing up something in the back room and said that he would be right out. We chatted with the wife and their kids for a few minutes while we were waiting for the husband to join us.
My companion was excited about this family since they were a complete family (with the parents actually, legally married, which was a rare thing in Argentina). They seemed like great people and I was happy that we had a complete family to teach. For my companion I think it was a point of pride that he had found and had spent so much time carefully teaching this family and that they were receptive to our message. He was hoping to extend to them that evening the offer to get baptized and was hoping for the best. I did not know them very well so I couldn't say one way or the other how they would react to the offer.
While we were waiting I remember sitting there at their kitchen table letting my companion do most of the talking not focusing much on anything. That is when I began to feel different. It felt almost like Déjà vu but without the feeling like I was remembering anything. It was more like I knew what was about to happen, and my sitting there listening to the conversation was like listening to and watching a replay of an event that I had already seen. I remember distinctly the husband coming into the kitchen and hesitating at the door way for a moment and then returning to check that he had actually turned off their washing machine in the back room before coming and sitting down with us.
As I sat there and looked at him I began to see what was about to happen. We chatted for a few minutes before my companion began the charla. I knew that it would not get far and indeed it was only three or four minutes before the discussion changed into something else. The husband was not vocally expressing any doubts and my companion still had great confidence that they wanted to get baptized. Even though I did not know them very well I could discern that they would not get baptized, and there was nothing that I could do about it. As my companion continued to talk and teach them it came to my turn to teach. At this point the feeling I had been having became even more intense to the point that I could discern everything in the room with perfect clarity. I still recall every detail of the room as it has been burned into my memory.
As I sat there with this intense feeling washing over me the conversation came into such sharp focus that in an instant I was able to discern the entirety of the conversation from the point that I began to speak to the point that we left the house. I knew everything that would be said before it was said. I knew the reactions of each person, including my companion. When it was my turn to teach I began by asking the husband what he thought about what we had been teaching him. He answered with a rather non-committal answer.
From this point on it was like I was merely reading a well rehearsed script rather than speaking to them. I knew the questions I would ask, and the answers that they would give. I knew their reactions, the reaction of my companion, what he would say to them and how they would respond. It was literally like watching a movie where I had already read the script. There were no surprises. There was no uncertainty. It happened just as I had seen it, down to the very last word.
In response to a further question the husband informed us that he was not really interested in continuing with our discussions. My companion made a plea to get him to change his mind. When my companion had exhausted all his options he looked at me. I continued with the script that I had already seen in my mind. To every question and comment the husband responded exactly word for word how I had seen it, and politely, but firmly turned us down. The wife also expressed her doubts but noted that she enjoyed discussing the scriptures with us. After a time we had nothing left to discuss so we said our goodbyes and we stepped out into the night.
I had only seen to the point where we left the house and that is where the spirit left me. It was a powerful and energizing feeling, but also one that took a lot of my stamina. As my companion and I walked along in silence, I marveling at the incredible and unique experience that I had just had, and my companion rather shocked and saddened by the rapid and unexpected change in their willingness to hear our message. After a while I felt that I should say something to my companion since he was on the verge of tears. Here was a family that he had invested so much time, effort and emotion in and they had just told him that they didn't want to hear our message any more. It must have been quite hard on my companion, and made harder by the fact that it was unexpected for him.
For me nothing that happened that night was unexpected. As we walked I tried to figure out if my companion had felt the same thing that I had felt. I asked him if he had any idea that we were about to get shut out. He said that he had no idea, that it was the most unexpected thing for him. I asked him if he had tried to notice or see anything (i.e. discern anything) when he look at the family. He looked at me like I wasn't making sense and asked if I wasn't as surprised as he was. I told him about my experience and about how I could clearly discern everything that was going to be said before it was said.
His reaction, at the time, surprised me. He got angry with me demanded to know how I could be so uncaring about what just happened. I didn't know how to explain to him that I did care about what had happened, but that it did not come a surprise. I again tried to tell him about my experience and how I had clearly experience the gift of discernment, but he would have none of it. He reacted with anger and accused me of being arrogant and unfeeling. I was just flabbergasted.
Now as I look back on the event I realize that the reason why my companion had not felt anything was because he had closed himself off from the idea that this family that he cared so much for were unwilling to listen to him. The Spirit could not get through to him to tell him what he needed to know so in the critical moment it revealed to me what was to happen so that I could be a part of it and witness the event, and give testimony of it because my companion would not. It was something that needed to happen, even though I have no idea why, and the Spirit needed me to know what was going to happen so that I could testify of what had happened. I pray that that was not the final chance for that husband and wife to accept the gospel.
I did go back another time with a different companion but there was never any more interest to talk about the gospel and our doctrine. The wife was kind and respectful but they had made their choice.
This story took place in the city of Barranqueras, my last area of my mission. It was perhaps my second or third week in the area since I was just getting to know everything but I was not yet familiar with all of our investigators. There was one particular family that we had visited maybe once or twice, always very late in the evening when it was very dark out. In order to get to their house we would walk down the levee that kept the Río Paraná from flooding the city, and then just past the local soda pop bottling plant we would drop down into a very dark neighborhood (the same one where I later met and taught the local crime boss).
My companion had been teaching this family for some time before I got to the area, and when I arrived we had had one or two visits with a minimal amount of teaching. We then had a period of time where we could not find them at home because of illness and other things, until one day we managed to set a date to visit with them and have a real charla (missionary lesson). We arrived at their house at about 8:00 at night. The husband was finishing up something in the back room and said that he would be right out. We chatted with the wife and their kids for a few minutes while we were waiting for the husband to join us.
My companion was excited about this family since they were a complete family (with the parents actually, legally married, which was a rare thing in Argentina). They seemed like great people and I was happy that we had a complete family to teach. For my companion I think it was a point of pride that he had found and had spent so much time carefully teaching this family and that they were receptive to our message. He was hoping to extend to them that evening the offer to get baptized and was hoping for the best. I did not know them very well so I couldn't say one way or the other how they would react to the offer.
While we were waiting I remember sitting there at their kitchen table letting my companion do most of the talking not focusing much on anything. That is when I began to feel different. It felt almost like Déjà vu but without the feeling like I was remembering anything. It was more like I knew what was about to happen, and my sitting there listening to the conversation was like listening to and watching a replay of an event that I had already seen. I remember distinctly the husband coming into the kitchen and hesitating at the door way for a moment and then returning to check that he had actually turned off their washing machine in the back room before coming and sitting down with us.
As I sat there and looked at him I began to see what was about to happen. We chatted for a few minutes before my companion began the charla. I knew that it would not get far and indeed it was only three or four minutes before the discussion changed into something else. The husband was not vocally expressing any doubts and my companion still had great confidence that they wanted to get baptized. Even though I did not know them very well I could discern that they would not get baptized, and there was nothing that I could do about it. As my companion continued to talk and teach them it came to my turn to teach. At this point the feeling I had been having became even more intense to the point that I could discern everything in the room with perfect clarity. I still recall every detail of the room as it has been burned into my memory.
As I sat there with this intense feeling washing over me the conversation came into such sharp focus that in an instant I was able to discern the entirety of the conversation from the point that I began to speak to the point that we left the house. I knew everything that would be said before it was said. I knew the reactions of each person, including my companion. When it was my turn to teach I began by asking the husband what he thought about what we had been teaching him. He answered with a rather non-committal answer.
From this point on it was like I was merely reading a well rehearsed script rather than speaking to them. I knew the questions I would ask, and the answers that they would give. I knew their reactions, the reaction of my companion, what he would say to them and how they would respond. It was literally like watching a movie where I had already read the script. There were no surprises. There was no uncertainty. It happened just as I had seen it, down to the very last word.
In response to a further question the husband informed us that he was not really interested in continuing with our discussions. My companion made a plea to get him to change his mind. When my companion had exhausted all his options he looked at me. I continued with the script that I had already seen in my mind. To every question and comment the husband responded exactly word for word how I had seen it, and politely, but firmly turned us down. The wife also expressed her doubts but noted that she enjoyed discussing the scriptures with us. After a time we had nothing left to discuss so we said our goodbyes and we stepped out into the night.
I had only seen to the point where we left the house and that is where the spirit left me. It was a powerful and energizing feeling, but also one that took a lot of my stamina. As my companion and I walked along in silence, I marveling at the incredible and unique experience that I had just had, and my companion rather shocked and saddened by the rapid and unexpected change in their willingness to hear our message. After a while I felt that I should say something to my companion since he was on the verge of tears. Here was a family that he had invested so much time, effort and emotion in and they had just told him that they didn't want to hear our message any more. It must have been quite hard on my companion, and made harder by the fact that it was unexpected for him.
For me nothing that happened that night was unexpected. As we walked I tried to figure out if my companion had felt the same thing that I had felt. I asked him if he had any idea that we were about to get shut out. He said that he had no idea, that it was the most unexpected thing for him. I asked him if he had tried to notice or see anything (i.e. discern anything) when he look at the family. He looked at me like I wasn't making sense and asked if I wasn't as surprised as he was. I told him about my experience and about how I could clearly discern everything that was going to be said before it was said.
His reaction, at the time, surprised me. He got angry with me demanded to know how I could be so uncaring about what just happened. I didn't know how to explain to him that I did care about what had happened, but that it did not come a surprise. I again tried to tell him about my experience and how I had clearly experience the gift of discernment, but he would have none of it. He reacted with anger and accused me of being arrogant and unfeeling. I was just flabbergasted.
Now as I look back on the event I realize that the reason why my companion had not felt anything was because he had closed himself off from the idea that this family that he cared so much for were unwilling to listen to him. The Spirit could not get through to him to tell him what he needed to know so in the critical moment it revealed to me what was to happen so that I could be a part of it and witness the event, and give testimony of it because my companion would not. It was something that needed to happen, even though I have no idea why, and the Spirit needed me to know what was going to happen so that I could testify of what had happened. I pray that that was not the final chance for that husband and wife to accept the gospel.
I did go back another time with a different companion but there was never any more interest to talk about the gospel and our doctrine. The wife was kind and respectful but they had made their choice.
Sunday, June 16, 2013
Book Review: Four Cultures of the West by John W. O'Malley
When I first heard about this book I thought it sounded interesting. The basic premise is that there are four separate and distinct cultures that cooperate and compete with each other in Western Civilization. He likens these four cultures to four streams (like the Gulf Stream or a jet stream) that are embedded in our larger culture. They twist and wind their way through our history and shape the way we view and interact with the world. I admit that I approached the book with a slightly critical attitude, intending to give it a thorough consideration. So when reading the book I had a perpetual thought of, "Is this right, or is he just trying to squeeze history into his own private interpretation?"
Because I had this attitude for much of the book when I finally got to the Epilogue I had a rather interesting realization. I realized that he was right, and because of how he had written the book, and how he approached the subject matter he could not be proven wrong, because any attempt to prove him wrong would by its very nature prove him right. I will explain this a little more after I give a summary of the four cultures that he is talking about.
The four cultures are: 1. The Prophetic 2. The Academic 3. The Rhetorical 4. The Artistic.
These are not the names that he necessarily assigns to them, though in the case of cultures one and two he does refer to them frequently as "the prophetic" and "the academic". The other two cultures are never given succinct names. I did take exception to his use of the term "prophetic" for culture one. A better term I think would be "The Proclamatory" but that term doesn't have the same zing to it as "The Prophetic" though I think "proclamatory" is closer to what he intends to encapsulate culture one. But there is no need to get hung up on definitions since he does spend several hundred pages explaining the four cultures. I will now give a brief breakdown of how he describes the four cultures.
1. The Prophetic: (The culture of proclamation and reform.) This culture deals with right and wrong, not with proof and argument. That is key to understanding this culture. The reason why he calls it prophetic is due to the nature of the prophecies in the Old Testament where the prophets proclaimed the wrongs and the sins of the people and told them to repent. There was no argument or persuasion. There was simple statement of impending judgement. The modern archetype of this culture can be found in Martin Luther. It should be noted that O'Malley does not place any one person in a single culture and stresses that someone as complex as Martin Luther cannot be subsumed under a single culture. But the most distinct elements of Martin Luther's work can be thought of as typical of culture one.
2. The Academic: (The culture of proof, logic, argument, professions (legal, technical etc.) and academia.) This culture deals with proof through argument and the proliferation of technical definitions and fields of study. It is the driving force behind both modern science and law. Since the end of World War II this culture has become the dominate culture in Western Civilization. It dominates in our schools, our jobs, our economy and our politics. This culture contains the idea that right and wrong can be argued and proven through presentation of evidence. It is the dry boring culture of academia where it is more important to be technically precise than it is to be interesting.
3. The Rhetorical: (The culture of poetry, persuasion, and the common good.) If culture two is the culture of proof and argument, then culture three is the culture of persuasion and cooperation. In culture three the members do not strive so much to prove a point, as in culture two, or to declare someone in the wrong, as in culture one, but to persuade all involved to come to a consensus. This is properly the culture of the consummate politician, well versed, well spoken, well mannered, well bred and well read. Those who partake of culture three are more interested in packing an overabundance of meaning into a poetic statement than giving a technical definition. If culture two tries to fine tune the meaning of terms then culture three prefers to proliferate meanings in a single term. The ideal education of culture three is the "Classical" education where the students learn to read the classics of Greek and Latin literature (and later the classics of more modern literature). The education of culture three involves rhetoric, grammar and a grounding in literature and philosophy. Up until the beginning of the 20th century to have an education meant to have a classical education in the style of culture three.
4. The Artistic: (The culture of art, museums, pageantry and show.) This culture is inherently non-verbal, but still very important. It is the culture of music, dance, sculpture, art, pageantry and processions. If there is a set pageantry that requires the motion of those involved to be a certain way then that is a demonstration of this culture. Major examples of this culture can be found in the show and pageantry that can be found in major weddings, coronation ceremonies, parades and catholic mass. The mere fact that art museums exist demonstrate the existence and distinct nature of culture four. Up until a few hundred years ago the concept of having a designated building to hold art, where people went to view art, was unheard of. Art was usually found in churches, in schools, in the houses of rich people or in public places. The concept of collecting, preserving and displaying art in its own "artistic" space is a result of the growth of culture four. The fact that you do not find the concept of an art museum unusual indicates that you at least accept the existence of culture four, even if you were not aware of the existence of culture four.
These four cultures do not work in a vacuum and neither does O'Malley imply that they are the only elements of our society, but rather they are like the Gulf Stream, a major movement embedded in the larger ocean of our society. There are other currents and cross currents but these four cultures constitute a major part of our society. They sometimes work together and sometimes against each other. At times they move without interaction and at other times they are in direct competition.
If culture one strives to make people holy, culture two strives to make well tuned professionals, culture three strives to make well rounded individuals who can work well with others, and culture four strives to make people emotive and expressive.
When I finally got to the Epilogue I was still a little unconvinced, not because O'Malley did not make his case properly, but because the subject matter is very complex and I was still keeping a skeptical attitude. But when I read his Epilogue I had a sudden epiphany. O'Malley was right, and could not be proven wrong. The reason for this is because, as he begins his Epilogue,
So why should you care about this? This all seems rather academic you may say, but if we understand these different cultures then we can begin to understand the society we live in. I will give a couple examples of how these different cultures manifest themselves in a very real way in our society today.
A few months ago the governor of the state where I live went onto a live radio show to talk about his plan for the state. One of the things he mentioned was the inefficiencies in the education system in the state. Specifically he said that there were some majors or fields of studies that were basically worthless since they would not help anyone get a job and pay off their student debt. Specifically he took issue with certain liberal arts (emphasis on the liberal) and suggested that if people wanted to study those things then they should do so at a private university, not at a public university, where those types of things are a waste of time. The backlash was rather harsh from some segments, most without argument (culture one on display) and motivated by political considerations. There were some people who wrote letters to the editor of various newspapers who insisted quite strenuously that the purpose of a liberal arts education was not so that they could get a job, but rather so that they could be a more well rounded and "educated" individual. They were not looking for job training in their degree but rather to gain an "education", something that cannot be quantified by a paycheck.
What we had here was a clash of cultures. The governor, taking the position from culture two, insisted that education had its purpose in training individuals to do a specific task so that they could get a job and achieve that which is most valuable to culture two, the quantification of human life, in this case in the quantification of a large(r) paycheck. But this clashed with culture three which holds that education is not for specific training but to enlarge a person so that they have a greater more well rounded understanding, even if none of it is quantifiably practical. Thus there were two cultures divided by a common language and they fundamentally failed to communicate. Ultimately both sides concluded that the other daft and had taken all leave of reason because obviously they have no idea what the word "education" means.
So where else do we see these four cultures? Here is a list of a few possibilities:
Because I had this attitude for much of the book when I finally got to the Epilogue I had a rather interesting realization. I realized that he was right, and because of how he had written the book, and how he approached the subject matter he could not be proven wrong, because any attempt to prove him wrong would by its very nature prove him right. I will explain this a little more after I give a summary of the four cultures that he is talking about.
The four cultures are: 1. The Prophetic 2. The Academic 3. The Rhetorical 4. The Artistic.
These are not the names that he necessarily assigns to them, though in the case of cultures one and two he does refer to them frequently as "the prophetic" and "the academic". The other two cultures are never given succinct names. I did take exception to his use of the term "prophetic" for culture one. A better term I think would be "The Proclamatory" but that term doesn't have the same zing to it as "The Prophetic" though I think "proclamatory" is closer to what he intends to encapsulate culture one. But there is no need to get hung up on definitions since he does spend several hundred pages explaining the four cultures. I will now give a brief breakdown of how he describes the four cultures.
1. The Prophetic: (The culture of proclamation and reform.) This culture deals with right and wrong, not with proof and argument. That is key to understanding this culture. The reason why he calls it prophetic is due to the nature of the prophecies in the Old Testament where the prophets proclaimed the wrongs and the sins of the people and told them to repent. There was no argument or persuasion. There was simple statement of impending judgement. The modern archetype of this culture can be found in Martin Luther. It should be noted that O'Malley does not place any one person in a single culture and stresses that someone as complex as Martin Luther cannot be subsumed under a single culture. But the most distinct elements of Martin Luther's work can be thought of as typical of culture one.
2. The Academic: (The culture of proof, logic, argument, professions (legal, technical etc.) and academia.) This culture deals with proof through argument and the proliferation of technical definitions and fields of study. It is the driving force behind both modern science and law. Since the end of World War II this culture has become the dominate culture in Western Civilization. It dominates in our schools, our jobs, our economy and our politics. This culture contains the idea that right and wrong can be argued and proven through presentation of evidence. It is the dry boring culture of academia where it is more important to be technically precise than it is to be interesting.
3. The Rhetorical: (The culture of poetry, persuasion, and the common good.) If culture two is the culture of proof and argument, then culture three is the culture of persuasion and cooperation. In culture three the members do not strive so much to prove a point, as in culture two, or to declare someone in the wrong, as in culture one, but to persuade all involved to come to a consensus. This is properly the culture of the consummate politician, well versed, well spoken, well mannered, well bred and well read. Those who partake of culture three are more interested in packing an overabundance of meaning into a poetic statement than giving a technical definition. If culture two tries to fine tune the meaning of terms then culture three prefers to proliferate meanings in a single term. The ideal education of culture three is the "Classical" education where the students learn to read the classics of Greek and Latin literature (and later the classics of more modern literature). The education of culture three involves rhetoric, grammar and a grounding in literature and philosophy. Up until the beginning of the 20th century to have an education meant to have a classical education in the style of culture three.
4. The Artistic: (The culture of art, museums, pageantry and show.) This culture is inherently non-verbal, but still very important. It is the culture of music, dance, sculpture, art, pageantry and processions. If there is a set pageantry that requires the motion of those involved to be a certain way then that is a demonstration of this culture. Major examples of this culture can be found in the show and pageantry that can be found in major weddings, coronation ceremonies, parades and catholic mass. The mere fact that art museums exist demonstrate the existence and distinct nature of culture four. Up until a few hundred years ago the concept of having a designated building to hold art, where people went to view art, was unheard of. Art was usually found in churches, in schools, in the houses of rich people or in public places. The concept of collecting, preserving and displaying art in its own "artistic" space is a result of the growth of culture four. The fact that you do not find the concept of an art museum unusual indicates that you at least accept the existence of culture four, even if you were not aware of the existence of culture four.
These four cultures do not work in a vacuum and neither does O'Malley imply that they are the only elements of our society, but rather they are like the Gulf Stream, a major movement embedded in the larger ocean of our society. There are other currents and cross currents but these four cultures constitute a major part of our society. They sometimes work together and sometimes against each other. At times they move without interaction and at other times they are in direct competition.
If culture one strives to make people holy, culture two strives to make well tuned professionals, culture three strives to make well rounded individuals who can work well with others, and culture four strives to make people emotive and expressive.
When I finally got to the Epilogue I was still a little unconvinced, not because O'Malley did not make his case properly, but because the subject matter is very complex and I was still keeping a skeptical attitude. But when I read his Epilogue I had a sudden epiphany. O'Malley was right, and could not be proven wrong. The reason for this is because, as he begins his Epilogue,
"The genre in which I have tried to write this book is the epideictic genre of culture three. The genre has as it purpose the heightening of appreciation. With that end in view I have held up for you the accomplishments of my four cultures." (p. 235)It was at this point that I realized that he was never trying to "prove" anything, because that was a symptom of culture two, which he was astutely avoiding when writing his book. And furthermore if anyone took it upon themselves to prove him wrong then by the very attempt they would prove him right, because by so doing they are exhibiting the characteristics of culture two. If someone proclaims him wrong with no argument then they are exhibiting the characteristics of culture one. Thus any attempt to prove him wrong automatically proves him right. And this is because he was not proving anything other than making a simple statement and observation for us to see no different than saying that the Mississippi River flows south, and the Gulf Stream flows northeast. So the entire time I was taking a skeptical attitude but by so doing I was proving him right.
So why should you care about this? This all seems rather academic you may say, but if we understand these different cultures then we can begin to understand the society we live in. I will give a couple examples of how these different cultures manifest themselves in a very real way in our society today.
A few months ago the governor of the state where I live went onto a live radio show to talk about his plan for the state. One of the things he mentioned was the inefficiencies in the education system in the state. Specifically he said that there were some majors or fields of studies that were basically worthless since they would not help anyone get a job and pay off their student debt. Specifically he took issue with certain liberal arts (emphasis on the liberal) and suggested that if people wanted to study those things then they should do so at a private university, not at a public university, where those types of things are a waste of time. The backlash was rather harsh from some segments, most without argument (culture one on display) and motivated by political considerations. There were some people who wrote letters to the editor of various newspapers who insisted quite strenuously that the purpose of a liberal arts education was not so that they could get a job, but rather so that they could be a more well rounded and "educated" individual. They were not looking for job training in their degree but rather to gain an "education", something that cannot be quantified by a paycheck.
What we had here was a clash of cultures. The governor, taking the position from culture two, insisted that education had its purpose in training individuals to do a specific task so that they could get a job and achieve that which is most valuable to culture two, the quantification of human life, in this case in the quantification of a large(r) paycheck. But this clashed with culture three which holds that education is not for specific training but to enlarge a person so that they have a greater more well rounded understanding, even if none of it is quantifiably practical. Thus there were two cultures divided by a common language and they fundamentally failed to communicate. Ultimately both sides concluded that the other daft and had taken all leave of reason because obviously they have no idea what the word "education" means.
So where else do we see these four cultures? Here is a list of a few possibilities:
- Street protests (culture one)
- Art museums (culture four)
- Promotion of Science Technology Engineering and Math (STEM) research and education (culture two)
- Home schooling parents who want to give their children a "good" and "classical" education (one and three respectively)
- Anti-GMO, anti-government, anti-global warming, pro-GMO, pro-government, pro-global warming fights, disputes, internet comments and Facebook posts (culture one)
- Expressing dismay that children don't read good literature, and read trash like Twilight (mixture of one and three)
- People saying that whenever there is a political dispute we just "need to sit down and talk about it rationally and 'have a dialogue'" (culture three)
- The people who think the people from the previous list item are crazy and willing to compromise with the devil (culture one)
The thing to remember is that each of the four cultures have a different set of values and things that they consider to be "the good" (though "the good" is more indicative of culture three). Because each culture measures value differently there are disagreements over the things that our society should place emphasis on and what should be encouraged and what should not. It should be emphasized that not all aspects of our society fall into these four cultures, just as not all parts of the ocean are in a current, but they are major players in our society and determine how many of our current political and social conflicts and triumphs work and come about. As a final note I should point out that while these cultures may determine the form and function of disputes and cooperative efforts alike in our society, they do not determine the content. These cultures are about form not content.
Sunday, June 2, 2013
Don't forget what it means to be Christlike
As I was sitting in church today one of the speakers mentioned how she was continuously working on being more Christlike. As she said it my mind immediately began to turn and to think about the term "Christlike" in an analytic way (it's just the way my mind works). I thought about how it is a very nebulous term that is at the same time very specific and intuitive while being fraught with difficulties and misunderstandings. I recalled how I had heard people use it in such a way that it was basically reduced to a platitude, i.e. their interpretation was so wide just about anything could be considered Christlike.
My train of thought wandered back and forth considering all the ways that I had heard people refer to being Christlike. I remembered people telling me (not me personally, but to my Sunday School class or Seminary class) years ago when I was a teenager, "Jesus spent all his time going about and talking to people and helping them, so that's what you need to be like, and that is being Christlike." Effectively what I heard was "Jesus was a big time extrovert, like me, so if you want to be Christlike then you need to be an extrovert, like me!" (For some reason extroverts tend to think that everyone should be an extrovert like them. I'm sure that there are many introverts who also think that everyone should be introverts, but because they are introverts they don't tend to go around telling people about it.)
At one point during my train of thought I decided to write a blog post about what I was thinking. My initial thought was to title the post something like, "When being Christlike becomes meaningless" but then I quickly realized that I would probable spend most of my post explaining that I am not implying that we should not be Christlike, but that we should not use the term "Christlike" in a way that it removes all meaning. That's when I decided to change my approach and settled on the current title.
The term "Christlike" is rather simple in its meaning but complex in its application. If you look up the word in a dictionary you might get something like this, "resembling or showing the spirit of Jesus Christ". Unfortunately too many references to being Christlike focus more on personality than on specific acts of kindness or forgiveness. Sometimes we spend too much time saying that we need to be Christlike but fail to identify specific examples of how we might be Christlike. Perhaps if we realize that we are getting caught up in the trivial we should reorient our approach and think more on our relationship with Christ because after we have recommitted ourselves to Christ and his atonement, then being Christlike comes more easily and the attributes of living a Christlike life will flow easily to us. First come the Christ and then be Christlike. It is something that we must do again and again. It is not a one time event, but a continual process.
If at any point we feel that "being Christlike" has become a trite saying that is said because it needs to be said we must first come unto Christ and that will remind us what it means to be Christlike. A good place to start is to return to what has been called the Constitution of a Perfect Life, the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. The key is to remember that I should not become a platitude to say that we are working on being Christlike.
My train of thought wandered back and forth considering all the ways that I had heard people refer to being Christlike. I remembered people telling me (not me personally, but to my Sunday School class or Seminary class) years ago when I was a teenager, "Jesus spent all his time going about and talking to people and helping them, so that's what you need to be like, and that is being Christlike." Effectively what I heard was "Jesus was a big time extrovert, like me, so if you want to be Christlike then you need to be an extrovert, like me!" (For some reason extroverts tend to think that everyone should be an extrovert like them. I'm sure that there are many introverts who also think that everyone should be introverts, but because they are introverts they don't tend to go around telling people about it.)
At one point during my train of thought I decided to write a blog post about what I was thinking. My initial thought was to title the post something like, "When being Christlike becomes meaningless" but then I quickly realized that I would probable spend most of my post explaining that I am not implying that we should not be Christlike, but that we should not use the term "Christlike" in a way that it removes all meaning. That's when I decided to change my approach and settled on the current title.
The term "Christlike" is rather simple in its meaning but complex in its application. If you look up the word in a dictionary you might get something like this, "resembling or showing the spirit of Jesus Christ". Unfortunately too many references to being Christlike focus more on personality than on specific acts of kindness or forgiveness. Sometimes we spend too much time saying that we need to be Christlike but fail to identify specific examples of how we might be Christlike. Perhaps if we realize that we are getting caught up in the trivial we should reorient our approach and think more on our relationship with Christ because after we have recommitted ourselves to Christ and his atonement, then being Christlike comes more easily and the attributes of living a Christlike life will flow easily to us. First come the Christ and then be Christlike. It is something that we must do again and again. It is not a one time event, but a continual process.
If at any point we feel that "being Christlike" has become a trite saying that is said because it needs to be said we must first come unto Christ and that will remind us what it means to be Christlike. A good place to start is to return to what has been called the Constitution of a Perfect Life, the Beatitudes from the Sermon on the Mount. The key is to remember that I should not become a platitude to say that we are working on being Christlike.
This comes from a talk given by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland back in 2006.
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