Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart. Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language. Do not now look for the answers. They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them. It is a question of experiencing everything. At present you need to live the question. Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.
-Rilke
Monday, February 28, 2011
Friday, February 25, 2011
namesake
I am named after my great great grandfather, Jonathan Heaton. When my parents were naming me, they went through the family tree to see if there were any names they liked, and they settled on Jonathan, which is much better than some of the other options. My namesake (or am I his namesake? Or does it go both ways?) is the one on the right below. He looks a little fierce. Please notice how naturally his daughter places her hand on his shoulder. The familial warmth and affection is so tangible. I'm not sure why she's so hesitant, he seems friendly enough. The lady sitting next to him is one of his wives.
Yes, he had two. I figure that between the two of us, we even each other out. Maybe he was planning ahead for potentially homosexual progeny who wouldn't take a wife. Maybe that's the explanation for polygamy; our ancestors were trying to overcompensate for all these gays that they somehow knew would be cropping up, refusing to play along and marry a woman. He also had lots and lots of sons (pictured below).
Above is the whole brood gathered together for a family picture. I kind of love what they chose as their backdrop. They lived in Moccasin, Arizona, and judging by the location of Moccasin (see the Google map below), there probably wasn't much else to choose for a backdrop. If you zoom out, you'll notice that other than the city of Kaibab, the nearest city is Colorado City, of FLDS fame.
View Larger Map
As I was reading up on Jonathan and his wives, I thought I had discovered a dirty family secret. One website said that his first wife, Clarissa, was born in 1880. The church manifesto that banned the continuation of plural marriages (kind of) was in 1890, which would mean that either Jonathan was a post-manifesto polygamist or he married a 10 year old. As it turns out, the website with the 1880 birth date was off by 20 years. Clarissa was actually born in 1860. I just double checked when the two were married though, and it was was 1875. She was 15 and Jonathan was 18. I suppose by today's standards that could qualify as a dirty family secret. Or a reality show on MTV.
I have to admit though, part of me is a little bit disappointed to discover that my namesake wasn't actually a rogue, post-manifesto polygamist. Sometimes family does a really good job of disappointing us, don't they?
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
request for input!
I am contributing to a documentary that intends to respectfully and thoughtfully explore the various paths of the gay Mormon. These could be paths inside the church or outside the church, in a same sex relationship or mixed orientation marriage or a chosen path of celibacy. The idea is to explore the tension and struggles and sacrifices and joys that are a part of each path. We are trying to find a wide variety of people to get a robust representation of the variety of possibilities within the gay Mormon experience and some are harder to find than others. The following are some perspectives we are currently missing:
• Someone who has chosen to live a celibate life within the church and is also willing to talk about it on camera. Ideally, this person would have some years of experience following this decision, preferably someone in at least his/her 30’s.
• Someone who left the church to live an openly homosexual life for at least a few years and then came back to the church.
• Orthodox Mormon parents who have gone through their own “coming out” process as the parents of an LGBT child.
If you fit any of the above descriptions and would be open to being interviewed on camera, please contact me via the email in my blogger profile or in the comments below. Also, please forward this on to anyone you know who might fit any of the above descriptions or to anyone you think has a particularly interesting or compelling story.
Thanks!
• Someone who has chosen to live a celibate life within the church and is also willing to talk about it on camera. Ideally, this person would have some years of experience following this decision, preferably someone in at least his/her 30’s.
• Someone who left the church to live an openly homosexual life for at least a few years and then came back to the church.
• Orthodox Mormon parents who have gone through their own “coming out” process as the parents of an LGBT child.
If you fit any of the above descriptions and would be open to being interviewed on camera, please contact me via the email in my blogger profile or in the comments below. Also, please forward this on to anyone you know who might fit any of the above descriptions or to anyone you think has a particularly interesting or compelling story.
Thanks!
Sunday, February 20, 2011
i am
This documentary premiered here in Portland on Friday night and I went and saw it. It kind of bugs me when people go on and on about how good a movie is and tell me how I have to see it, so I'll try not to do that. I will say though, that it was a film that caused a shift in how I perceive myself and my relationship to others in a pretty big way. I would even venture so far as to say that I had a spiritual experience while watching it.
Tom Shadyac, the director was there for a Q&A afterwards and the energy in the room was completely electric. One person made the comment that we need a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi to lead a change in the world and Tom made the astute observation that we don't need an MLK or a Gandhi. In order for profound and long lasting change to occur, we need to stop assuming that some other great mind will step in and make change happen. We all have to step up and be that person. I think that's partly where the title of the documentary comes from.
It's playing in Portland now at the Fox Tower and Tom is traveling across the U.S. showing it in select cities. I'm guessing/hoping that eventually they open it up to a much wider release. You can click here for showtimes.
Tom Shadyac, the director was there for a Q&A afterwards and the energy in the room was completely electric. One person made the comment that we need a Martin Luther King or a Gandhi to lead a change in the world and Tom made the astute observation that we don't need an MLK or a Gandhi. In order for profound and long lasting change to occur, we need to stop assuming that some other great mind will step in and make change happen. We all have to step up and be that person. I think that's partly where the title of the documentary comes from.
It's playing in Portland now at the Fox Tower and Tom is traveling across the U.S. showing it in select cities. I'm guessing/hoping that eventually they open it up to a much wider release. You can click here for showtimes.
Thursday, February 17, 2011
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
the androgyny of heaven
I wish I could say I came up with the title of this post myself, but it was MNJ. We were having an email discussion and he dropped that phrase and I loved it. I'm not really sure where this post is going to go. I just thought I'd take some of the things we were mulling over in our email exchange and think out loud and bring the conversation to the readers of my blog and see what you all think.
Something I tend to think about the nature of gender and attraction and sexuality. Sometimes at church (ok, most of the time at church and of course in other places as well) people boil these ideas down to very basic binary elements. There are men and there are women. Men have a penis and women have a vagina. Men have a certain role to play and so do women. Men are attracted to women and women to men. Everything fits into a neat little package.
Except that everything really doesn't fit into neat little packages. There are men attracted to men and women attracted to women and some attracted to both. Anything that falls outside of the neat package is labeled as unnatural. There are babies born with the genitalia of both a woman and a man and the parents have to decide what gender to assign the child. What happens if it becomes obvious as the child ages that the gender assigned doesn’t fit what the child begins to self identify as?
What even determines gender? Is it purely physical traits, or are there a spiritual components to it as well? If we believe gender is eternal, then there must be a spiritual component. If someone has the physical characteristics of a man, but feels very deeply that he is supposed to be a woman, is that the gender of his eternal soul? Is it right to demand that he live out his physical gender based on our current cultural constructs of what a man is? Maybe our current cultural constructs are broken.
Then we could get into attraction and how we express our attraction to others. There are unspoken rules about what kind of expression of affection is appropriate between two men or two women, and there’s a difference between what is generally accepted as appropriate for two women versus what is generally accepted as appropriate for two men. What’s an appropriate expression of affection for someone who is married, to someone who is not his or her spouse? I think some people get so wound up in that question that they are unable to have a normal relationship with anyone but their spouse.
I suppose my point is that I believe that our cultural constructs of gender and attraction are broken. I’m not necessarily saying I know how to make it not broken. I think we accept current constructs just because that’s what we’ve always known them to be. What if there’s a higher understanding and way to experience and express our gender and our attractions? Maybe gender is important but not necessarily so that we can split people up into masculine and feminine and give them roles to play. Maybe it’s so that we can cultivate both the masculine and the feminine within ourselves to become more whole and well. Maybe there’s some beautiful eternal truths embedded in all of these questions that we aren’t seeing because we limit ourselves to neat little packages.
I heard a friend once say that he thought one of the reasons gay marriage feels is so threatening to some is that it turns gender roles upside down. If two people of the same sex are able to have a happy, healthy relationship and raise well adjusted children that may actually do better than children of a mother and father (as this study suggests), then it kind of challenges how gender and its role in relationship are understood.
This was a whole lot of thought vomit. Feel free to vomit your own thoughts below. What do you think the role of gender is? What’s the role of attraction, other than to populate the earth? Are there ways we can experience and express them better than we currently do?
Oh, and remember this guy? Oh man.
Something I tend to think about the nature of gender and attraction and sexuality. Sometimes at church (ok, most of the time at church and of course in other places as well) people boil these ideas down to very basic binary elements. There are men and there are women. Men have a penis and women have a vagina. Men have a certain role to play and so do women. Men are attracted to women and women to men. Everything fits into a neat little package.
Except that everything really doesn't fit into neat little packages. There are men attracted to men and women attracted to women and some attracted to both. Anything that falls outside of the neat package is labeled as unnatural. There are babies born with the genitalia of both a woman and a man and the parents have to decide what gender to assign the child. What happens if it becomes obvious as the child ages that the gender assigned doesn’t fit what the child begins to self identify as?
What even determines gender? Is it purely physical traits, or are there a spiritual components to it as well? If we believe gender is eternal, then there must be a spiritual component. If someone has the physical characteristics of a man, but feels very deeply that he is supposed to be a woman, is that the gender of his eternal soul? Is it right to demand that he live out his physical gender based on our current cultural constructs of what a man is? Maybe our current cultural constructs are broken.
Then we could get into attraction and how we express our attraction to others. There are unspoken rules about what kind of expression of affection is appropriate between two men or two women, and there’s a difference between what is generally accepted as appropriate for two women versus what is generally accepted as appropriate for two men. What’s an appropriate expression of affection for someone who is married, to someone who is not his or her spouse? I think some people get so wound up in that question that they are unable to have a normal relationship with anyone but their spouse.
I suppose my point is that I believe that our cultural constructs of gender and attraction are broken. I’m not necessarily saying I know how to make it not broken. I think we accept current constructs just because that’s what we’ve always known them to be. What if there’s a higher understanding and way to experience and express our gender and our attractions? Maybe gender is important but not necessarily so that we can split people up into masculine and feminine and give them roles to play. Maybe it’s so that we can cultivate both the masculine and the feminine within ourselves to become more whole and well. Maybe there’s some beautiful eternal truths embedded in all of these questions that we aren’t seeing because we limit ourselves to neat little packages.
I heard a friend once say that he thought one of the reasons gay marriage feels is so threatening to some is that it turns gender roles upside down. If two people of the same sex are able to have a happy, healthy relationship and raise well adjusted children that may actually do better than children of a mother and father (as this study suggests), then it kind of challenges how gender and its role in relationship are understood.
This was a whole lot of thought vomit. Feel free to vomit your own thoughts below. What do you think the role of gender is? What’s the role of attraction, other than to populate the earth? Are there ways we can experience and express them better than we currently do?
Oh, and remember this guy? Oh man.
Friday, February 11, 2011
Wednesday, February 9, 2011
mormon expressions interview
Thanks to John G-W for posting a link to this interview from Mormon Expressions on his blog. I think it's well worth a listen. The subject of the interview is Steven Fehr, who was featured in this article from the Salt Lake Tribune, and he talks about his experience being openly gay and in a committed relationship and also active in the LDS church.
Be careful though. There are parts that might make you cry a little bit at work in your cubicle while you eat your turkey sandwich. Not that I speak from experience...
Be careful though. There are parts that might make you cry a little bit at work in your cubicle while you eat your turkey sandwich. Not that I speak from experience...
Sunday, February 6, 2011
my life. on facebook.
Hey dudes. As you might have noticed, I got an extreme blog make over. My sister's sister-in-law Dani (not sure what that makes Dani to me? Sister-in-law-in-law? Dani and I also went to high school together but she was a grade or two ahead of me and therefore much cooler, so she's really more than just a sister-in-law-in-law. With a parenthetical statement this long, I should probably just start the sentence over.) Dani gave me a blog make over and I love what she did, with the one exception of my face greeting you at the top. I sent her another picture to incorporate (not of me), but she's a busy lady and her daughter just got baptized yesterday, so in the mean time, you'll have to put up with my face. Who knows, by the time you read this, the picture might already be changed and you'll be sad you didn't get to see me.
Anyway, on to the real purpose of this post. My mission president's daughter and her family live here in Portland, and so he and his wife were here to visit and took me and a few of their other former missionaries to breakfast. My mission president recently joined Facebook and has discovered what a great tool it is to keep in touch with people, particularly all his former missionaries. I mentioned something about the picture he posted on Facebook of him with his Czechoslovakian eagle on his arm (that's another story, as you might imagine.) That's when he told me that he can't figure out my posts. He said he couldn't tell what was going on with me by what I posted and asked if that was by design. I couldn't really figure out what he was talking about until I went home and looked at some of my recent posts that I share with you below.
Some of them are pretty straight forward, like "Several bizarre dreams last night. One of them being that I woke up with a perm," or "Just ran 6 miles." I also posted that "Some people take their ipads with them grocery shopping." I was grocery shopping and saw a man and a wife shopping with their ipad. I thought it was kind of funny.
Then it gets kind of weird. Like when I posted this:
I also posted this image by the owner of this fantastic blog.
The next thing needs a lot of explanation and maybe that means that I just shouldn't have posted it on Facebook. My friend Krisanne does this thing where if she doesn't like something or someone, she'll say that the thing or person gives her herpes. Like once we were talking about Glenn Beck and she said that Glenn Beck gives her herpes (but not literally, of course, Krisanne is a classy lady). Anyway, I can't remember what we were talking about, but Krisanne said that it gave her herpes and I responded by saying that herpes gives me herpes. (I can't wait to see what herpes google searches lead people to this post. They will probably not find the information they are looking for.) Krisanne replied that herpes giving me herpes sounds like a herpes paradox. The other thing that I think we have joked about is writing a book together, so when Krisanne said herpes paradox, I said that's it! That's our book! So I posted on Facebook, "The Herpes Paradox by Krisanne and Jon will be hitting bookstores soon. Look for it." So yeah, no one steal that idea. You won't do the book the justice it deserves.
Then there was the Jon Hamm post. I said, "Damn you, Jon Hamm. Now whenever I hear a saxophone, I can't help but think of this..."
Don't worry though. Sometimes I post serious stuff. Like the trailer to this fantastic movie I saw on Saturday night.
Anyway, on to the real purpose of this post. My mission president's daughter and her family live here in Portland, and so he and his wife were here to visit and took me and a few of their other former missionaries to breakfast. My mission president recently joined Facebook and has discovered what a great tool it is to keep in touch with people, particularly all his former missionaries. I mentioned something about the picture he posted on Facebook of him with his Czechoslovakian eagle on his arm (that's another story, as you might imagine.) That's when he told me that he can't figure out my posts. He said he couldn't tell what was going on with me by what I posted and asked if that was by design. I couldn't really figure out what he was talking about until I went home and looked at some of my recent posts that I share with you below.
Some of them are pretty straight forward, like "Several bizarre dreams last night. One of them being that I woke up with a perm," or "Just ran 6 miles." I also posted that "Some people take their ipads with them grocery shopping." I was grocery shopping and saw a man and a wife shopping with their ipad. I thought it was kind of funny.
Then it gets kind of weird. Like when I posted this:
I also posted this image by the owner of this fantastic blog.
The next thing needs a lot of explanation and maybe that means that I just shouldn't have posted it on Facebook. My friend Krisanne does this thing where if she doesn't like something or someone, she'll say that the thing or person gives her herpes. Like once we were talking about Glenn Beck and she said that Glenn Beck gives her herpes (but not literally, of course, Krisanne is a classy lady). Anyway, I can't remember what we were talking about, but Krisanne said that it gave her herpes and I responded by saying that herpes gives me herpes. (I can't wait to see what herpes google searches lead people to this post. They will probably not find the information they are looking for.) Krisanne replied that herpes giving me herpes sounds like a herpes paradox. The other thing that I think we have joked about is writing a book together, so when Krisanne said herpes paradox, I said that's it! That's our book! So I posted on Facebook, "The Herpes Paradox by Krisanne and Jon will be hitting bookstores soon. Look for it." So yeah, no one steal that idea. You won't do the book the justice it deserves.
Then there was the Jon Hamm post. I said, "Damn you, Jon Hamm. Now whenever I hear a saxophone, I can't help but think of this..."
Don't worry though. Sometimes I post serious stuff. Like the trailer to this fantastic movie I saw on Saturday night.
Tuesday, February 1, 2011
talk on the hg
Below is the talk I gave in church Sunday on the role of the Holy Ghost. If the idea of the Holy Ghost is unfamiliar to you or if you have something else that you feel guides you towards truth, feel free to substitute that idea as you read to make it more accessible to you.
Almost 8 years ago, in the first general conference after I moved to the beautiful city of Portland, Joseph Wirthlin said the following:
“Have you ever thought about the amount of light and energy generated by our sun? The amount is almost beyond comprehension. Yet the heat and light that we receive come as a free gift from God. This is another proof of the goodness of our Heavenly Father.
“The light from the sun breaks through space, bathing our planet as it encircles the sun with life-giving warmth and light. Without the sun, there could be no life on this planet; it would be forever barren, cold, and dark.
“As the sun gives life and light to the earth, a spiritual light gives nourishment to our spirits. We call this the Light of Christ. The scriptures teach us that it “lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Thus, all mankind can enjoy its blessings. The Light of Christ is the divine influence that allows every man, woman, and child to distinguish between good and evil. It encourages all to choose the right, to seek eternal truth, and to learn again the truths that we knew in our premortal existence but have forgotten in mortality.”
It’s the last part of that excerpt from Wirthlin’s talk that really catches my attention. That the Holy Ghost helps us to learn the truths that we knew in our premortal existence but have forgotten in mortality. I can’t say that I know this for sure, but I’m willing to bet that our understanding of the truth of all things was probably much fuller in our pre-existent state than it is now. I think we forget that we have access to what we knew before, who we are now and what we have the potential to become, and not just in the general sense that we are all sons and daughters of God with the potential to become gods and goddesses. I believe I can learn and know the specifics about who I was, what I knew before, why I came to earth with my given set of circumstances and how all of that can contribute to helping me become whatever I have the potential to become.
When stated like that, it becomes clear that learning to understand the role of the Holy Ghost in our lives and how we can more effectively access it are a couple of the most important things we can do in this life. Elder Wirthlin goes on to say:
"In the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord calls the gift of the Holy Ghost 'the unspeakable gift.' It is the source of testimony and spiritual gifts. It enlightens minds, fills our souls with joy, teaches us all things, and brings forgotten knowledge to our remembrance. The Holy Ghost also 'will show unto [us] all things what [we] should do.'"
"President James E. Faust added that the gift of the Holy Ghost 'is the greatest guarantor of inward peace in our unstable world.'
"President Gordon B. Hinckley taught, 'How great a blessing it is to have the ministering influence of a member of the Godhead.' Think of what this means, the ability and the right to receive the ministrations of a member of the Godhead, to commune with infinite wisdom, infinite knowledge, and infinite power!”
From these quotes, we learn that some of the roles of the Holy Ghost are teacher, testifier, reminder and comforter. I believe that the Holy Ghost also acts as a corrective lense. We all have our own set of limitations to understanding ourselves and others that are the result of our own skewed perceptions of others, our experiences and the world around us. We see things through the lense of our own experiences. We like to pretend that we know why people do what they do and why things happen the way they happen, but sometimes all we end up doing is horribilizing or interpreting experiences based on our own limited world view. The person who cut me off in traffic is a jerk who was deliberately trying to make me angry. So and so says what he says and believes what he believes because he just doesn’t understand. That person was short with me because she doesn’t like me. Bad things happen to me because I’m less than others.
I believe that through listening to that very quiet inner voice that we call the Holy Ghost, we can slide a corrective lense in place to help us see things as they are instead of as we too often incorrectly interpret them to be. I was chatting this week with my soul sister Krisanne, and telling her about the topic of my talk and she shared some terrific quotes by a woman named Marianne Williamson. Marianne calls the Holy Ghost the “bridge back to gentle thoughts,” “the Great Transformer of Perception,” and she says,
“The Holy Spirit guides us to a different perception of reality: one that is based on love. His correction of perception is called the Atonement. He reminds us that, in every situation, the love you've given is real, and the love you have received is real. Nothing else exists. Anything other than love is an illusion."
"In asking the Holy Spirit to help us, we are expressing our willingness to perceive a situation differently. We give up our own interpretations and opinions, and ask that they be replaced by His. When in pain, we pray, 'Dear God, I am willing to see this differently.' Surrendering a situation to God means surrendering to Him our thoughts about it. What we give to God, He gives back to us renewed through the vision of the Holy Spirit."
I also love what Marianne says about the Holy Ghost and comfort zones. Sometimes I think we misinterpret our discomfort in certain situations or with certain people to be the spirit telling us to avoid that person or situation. Sometimes that might be the case, but sometimes it isn’t. Marianne says,
"Our comfort zones are the limited areas in which we find it easy to love. It's the Holy Spirit's job not to respect those comfort zones but to bust them."
So far I’ve discussed the roles that the Holy Ghost plays. I think it’s important to also talk about how we invite the Holy Ghost into our lives, how we go about creating and cultivating a partnership with the spirit that expands our minds and spirits. We could talk about the importance of prayer and scripture study and attending church and the temple, and those things can certainly play a role, but I’m pretty sure you’re all well acquainted with those answers. I want to talk about something that I think serves to further animate and enliven and give meaning to those familiar answers. I believe that in order to invite the Holy Ghost into our lives as a constant companion, we need to continually make ourselves vulnerable, like a child.
The good news about that, is that if you choose to engage in life and be in relationship with others, you will have plenty of opportunities to feel vulnerable. The key though, is to allow yourself to be seen by others in the world. Often, we are so busy holding up what we want others to see us as, that we don’t let them see who we actually are. We hold onto the roles that we play and let that guide our interactions with others instead of shedding the roles and allowing others to see us for who we are. If we don’t let people see and experience who we are, it’s more difficult to feel vulnerable and more difficult to have rich and healing experiences with the spirit. If we’re having fewer experiences with the spirit, it’s harder to recognize when it’s present and how it teaches and heals us.
That vulnerability takes us to a place that allows the spirit to begin to work on us if we allow it to. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we do things to distract ourselves from difficult feelings. Some choose to lose themselves in work or in school. I’ve had a couple friends this week say they decided to take a break from Facebook for a bit because they realized they were numbing themselves with it. I’m sure each of us could take inventory of our own specialized numbing agents that we use to avoid that feeling of vulnerability.
As I said before though, if we allow it to, the vulnerabilty takes us to a place where the spirit can do it’s thing. Catherine Thomas is a retired BYU professor of ancient scripture and talks about this and she calls this place of vulnerability “the twilight zone”. She says,
"This twilight zone is a transition state between having recognized one’s fallenness [and] not yet reaching to the solution. . . . This is a state of hunger and bondage—not total darkness, but hunger for something indefinable. We can recognize it in ourselves when our souls cry out, “Is this all there is to the gospel? Can’t I feel a richer inner experience?” We can get stuck in this twilight because we are . . . going through some motions . . . [or] we seem to be on the path; but still, there’s that nagging hunger in the heart that doesn’t know what it wants. People try lots of things to assuage the hunger. . . . But [these worldly pursuits are] counterproductive where happiness and being born again are concerned. . . .
"That half-and-half state is precisely the problem and the source of our hunger. The hunger comes from the need for the most powerful nutrient a fallen human can receive: the Spirit of the Lord. . . . The Fall creates the hunger. Perhaps the most characteristic state of fallen man is the hunger and the feeling of darkness or spiritual twilight. Many people experience only the hunger for their entire lives.”
So how do we let the hunger work for us? One, I think we have to allow ourselves to feel it and then two, invite the spirit to come in and teach us the lessons that are embedded in that hunger. Lessons about who we are, what brings us lasting joy, who we have the potential to become.
There’s a a bumper sticker phrase that originated from Joseph Campbell that says Follow your bliss. I’m sure many of you have heard it before. The second half of that phrase is rarely included, probably because it’s not so warm and fuzzy. The second half says your bliss is found at the core of your suffering. That part doesn't look so good on a bumper sticker.
It is when we allow the Holy Ghost in as our companion in suffering that we truly begin to heal and transform and find our bliss. Going back to Elder Wirthlin’s talk, he said,
"If [you will] open [your] hearts to the refining influence of this unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost, a glorious new spiritual dimension [will] come to light. [Your] eyes [will] gaze upon a vista scarcely imaginable. [You can] know for [yourself] things of the Spirit that are choice, precious, and capable of enlarging the soul, expanding the mind, and filling the heart with inexpressible joy. "
Almost 8 years ago, in the first general conference after I moved to the beautiful city of Portland, Joseph Wirthlin said the following:
“Have you ever thought about the amount of light and energy generated by our sun? The amount is almost beyond comprehension. Yet the heat and light that we receive come as a free gift from God. This is another proof of the goodness of our Heavenly Father.
“The light from the sun breaks through space, bathing our planet as it encircles the sun with life-giving warmth and light. Without the sun, there could be no life on this planet; it would be forever barren, cold, and dark.
“As the sun gives life and light to the earth, a spiritual light gives nourishment to our spirits. We call this the Light of Christ. The scriptures teach us that it “lighteth every man that cometh into the world.” Thus, all mankind can enjoy its blessings. The Light of Christ is the divine influence that allows every man, woman, and child to distinguish between good and evil. It encourages all to choose the right, to seek eternal truth, and to learn again the truths that we knew in our premortal existence but have forgotten in mortality.”
It’s the last part of that excerpt from Wirthlin’s talk that really catches my attention. That the Holy Ghost helps us to learn the truths that we knew in our premortal existence but have forgotten in mortality. I can’t say that I know this for sure, but I’m willing to bet that our understanding of the truth of all things was probably much fuller in our pre-existent state than it is now. I think we forget that we have access to what we knew before, who we are now and what we have the potential to become, and not just in the general sense that we are all sons and daughters of God with the potential to become gods and goddesses. I believe I can learn and know the specifics about who I was, what I knew before, why I came to earth with my given set of circumstances and how all of that can contribute to helping me become whatever I have the potential to become.
When stated like that, it becomes clear that learning to understand the role of the Holy Ghost in our lives and how we can more effectively access it are a couple of the most important things we can do in this life. Elder Wirthlin goes on to say:
"In the Doctrine and Covenants, the Lord calls the gift of the Holy Ghost 'the unspeakable gift.' It is the source of testimony and spiritual gifts. It enlightens minds, fills our souls with joy, teaches us all things, and brings forgotten knowledge to our remembrance. The Holy Ghost also 'will show unto [us] all things what [we] should do.'"
"President James E. Faust added that the gift of the Holy Ghost 'is the greatest guarantor of inward peace in our unstable world.'
"President Gordon B. Hinckley taught, 'How great a blessing it is to have the ministering influence of a member of the Godhead.' Think of what this means, the ability and the right to receive the ministrations of a member of the Godhead, to commune with infinite wisdom, infinite knowledge, and infinite power!”
From these quotes, we learn that some of the roles of the Holy Ghost are teacher, testifier, reminder and comforter. I believe that the Holy Ghost also acts as a corrective lense. We all have our own set of limitations to understanding ourselves and others that are the result of our own skewed perceptions of others, our experiences and the world around us. We see things through the lense of our own experiences. We like to pretend that we know why people do what they do and why things happen the way they happen, but sometimes all we end up doing is horribilizing or interpreting experiences based on our own limited world view. The person who cut me off in traffic is a jerk who was deliberately trying to make me angry. So and so says what he says and believes what he believes because he just doesn’t understand. That person was short with me because she doesn’t like me. Bad things happen to me because I’m less than others.
I believe that through listening to that very quiet inner voice that we call the Holy Ghost, we can slide a corrective lense in place to help us see things as they are instead of as we too often incorrectly interpret them to be. I was chatting this week with my soul sister Krisanne, and telling her about the topic of my talk and she shared some terrific quotes by a woman named Marianne Williamson. Marianne calls the Holy Ghost the “bridge back to gentle thoughts,” “the Great Transformer of Perception,” and she says,
“The Holy Spirit guides us to a different perception of reality: one that is based on love. His correction of perception is called the Atonement. He reminds us that, in every situation, the love you've given is real, and the love you have received is real. Nothing else exists. Anything other than love is an illusion."
"In asking the Holy Spirit to help us, we are expressing our willingness to perceive a situation differently. We give up our own interpretations and opinions, and ask that they be replaced by His. When in pain, we pray, 'Dear God, I am willing to see this differently.' Surrendering a situation to God means surrendering to Him our thoughts about it. What we give to God, He gives back to us renewed through the vision of the Holy Spirit."
I also love what Marianne says about the Holy Ghost and comfort zones. Sometimes I think we misinterpret our discomfort in certain situations or with certain people to be the spirit telling us to avoid that person or situation. Sometimes that might be the case, but sometimes it isn’t. Marianne says,
"Our comfort zones are the limited areas in which we find it easy to love. It's the Holy Spirit's job not to respect those comfort zones but to bust them."
So far I’ve discussed the roles that the Holy Ghost plays. I think it’s important to also talk about how we invite the Holy Ghost into our lives, how we go about creating and cultivating a partnership with the spirit that expands our minds and spirits. We could talk about the importance of prayer and scripture study and attending church and the temple, and those things can certainly play a role, but I’m pretty sure you’re all well acquainted with those answers. I want to talk about something that I think serves to further animate and enliven and give meaning to those familiar answers. I believe that in order to invite the Holy Ghost into our lives as a constant companion, we need to continually make ourselves vulnerable, like a child.
The good news about that, is that if you choose to engage in life and be in relationship with others, you will have plenty of opportunities to feel vulnerable. The key though, is to allow yourself to be seen by others in the world. Often, we are so busy holding up what we want others to see us as, that we don’t let them see who we actually are. We hold onto the roles that we play and let that guide our interactions with others instead of shedding the roles and allowing others to see us for who we are. If we don’t let people see and experience who we are, it’s more difficult to feel vulnerable and more difficult to have rich and healing experiences with the spirit. If we’re having fewer experiences with the spirit, it’s harder to recognize when it’s present and how it teaches and heals us.
That vulnerability takes us to a place that allows the spirit to begin to work on us if we allow it to. Sometimes we don’t. Sometimes we do things to distract ourselves from difficult feelings. Some choose to lose themselves in work or in school. I’ve had a couple friends this week say they decided to take a break from Facebook for a bit because they realized they were numbing themselves with it. I’m sure each of us could take inventory of our own specialized numbing agents that we use to avoid that feeling of vulnerability.
As I said before though, if we allow it to, the vulnerabilty takes us to a place where the spirit can do it’s thing. Catherine Thomas is a retired BYU professor of ancient scripture and talks about this and she calls this place of vulnerability “the twilight zone”. She says,
"This twilight zone is a transition state between having recognized one’s fallenness [and] not yet reaching to the solution. . . . This is a state of hunger and bondage—not total darkness, but hunger for something indefinable. We can recognize it in ourselves when our souls cry out, “Is this all there is to the gospel? Can’t I feel a richer inner experience?” We can get stuck in this twilight because we are . . . going through some motions . . . [or] we seem to be on the path; but still, there’s that nagging hunger in the heart that doesn’t know what it wants. People try lots of things to assuage the hunger. . . . But [these worldly pursuits are] counterproductive where happiness and being born again are concerned. . . .
"That half-and-half state is precisely the problem and the source of our hunger. The hunger comes from the need for the most powerful nutrient a fallen human can receive: the Spirit of the Lord. . . . The Fall creates the hunger. Perhaps the most characteristic state of fallen man is the hunger and the feeling of darkness or spiritual twilight. Many people experience only the hunger for their entire lives.”
So how do we let the hunger work for us? One, I think we have to allow ourselves to feel it and then two, invite the spirit to come in and teach us the lessons that are embedded in that hunger. Lessons about who we are, what brings us lasting joy, who we have the potential to become.
There’s a a bumper sticker phrase that originated from Joseph Campbell that says Follow your bliss. I’m sure many of you have heard it before. The second half of that phrase is rarely included, probably because it’s not so warm and fuzzy. The second half says your bliss is found at the core of your suffering. That part doesn't look so good on a bumper sticker.
It is when we allow the Holy Ghost in as our companion in suffering that we truly begin to heal and transform and find our bliss. Going back to Elder Wirthlin’s talk, he said,
"If [you will] open [your] hearts to the refining influence of this unspeakable gift of the Holy Ghost, a glorious new spiritual dimension [will] come to light. [Your] eyes [will] gaze upon a vista scarcely imaginable. [You can] know for [yourself] things of the Spirit that are choice, precious, and capable of enlarging the soul, expanding the mind, and filling the heart with inexpressible joy. "
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