Thoughts about Ecclesiastes

One of the things the Book of Ecclesiastes is known for is a dismal outlook on life, exemplified by the saying that is repeated throughout of, “all is vanity and vexation of spirit” and “this also is vanity” and so on.

However, I recently realized that along with pointing out stuff that was vanity and vexation, I noticed it also points out what is good. The preacher of Ecclesiastes was anxious to discover the ideal, happy, profitable life, one best optimized for the most happiness. And running under all the observations about vanity and vexation are that fearing God and working hard is the optimal state.

Concerning work, the preacher of Ecclesiastes is not optimistic about the longevity of work results. He puzzles over how a wise king might be followed by an awful king who cares nothing and knows nothing about maintaining or adding to what was done before him. So the preacher falls back on realizing that each person must work and enjoy that work and not worry about what will happen once they leave life because the people who follow will have their own work to do.

This gives me the impression that the way work changes us is the most important result of work, when looked at from the eternal perspective. Work serves us temporarily by providing us with things like shelter, food, protection, education, comfort, but it serves us eternally by how it helps us develop good character. So, in terms of what Ecclesiastes teaches about work, it is very positive, and helps us keep from getting unhealthy notions about the temporal results.

Sacred Support

In this verse, Captain Moroni commands Zerahemnah to surrender in the name of God and by a list of other things that are important to the Nephites.

And now, Zerahemnah, I command you, in the name of that all-powerful God, who has strengthened our arms that we have gained power over you, by our faith, by our religion, and by our rites of worship, and by our church, and by the sacred support which we owe to our wives and our children, by that liberty which binds us to our lands and our country; yea, and also by the maintenance of the sacred word of God, to which we owe all our happiness; and by all that is most dear unto us— (Alma 44:5)

One of these things mentioned is “by that sacred support which we owe to our wives and our children.”

I love that term “sacred support.” To me it doesn’t just mean the psychological support and commitment to wife and children, but all the hard work that is done to provide for one’s family. I love that Captain Moroni calls it sacred, and it really is. That support is a sacrifice that good, able-bodied men make every working day for their families.

As a wife who benefits from this sacred support, when I see it as sacred, I realize it would be terribly disrespectful and ungrateful of me to then turn around and waste that. It puts a responsibility on me to use it wisely for the benefit of our family. It also means that the tithing that is paid out of that sacred support is doubly sacred, since it is essentially a second sacrifice.

Knowing that support of my husband is sacred gives yet another good reason for budgeting, to make sure that none of that sacrifice is wasted or for naught. Because it would be awful if our choices make that sacrifice meaningless.

Feeeelings… nothing more than feeeeelings. Or something else?

Do you ever find yourself in a mental-emotional place where your feelings contradict the thing you know to be true?  Or when you don’t feel good about the thing you know to be right, or feel bad about the thing you know to be good?

It’s annoying, but it happens on occasion, and it is important to at least be able to recognize what is going on so that the feelings don’t get the upper hand.

I’m going to tell about a weird conversation I had with the Lord to illustrate how I discovered Satan had been working on me to try to stop me from making progress.

Heavenly Father, I don’t understand what’s going on. I have to finish these minutes for the meeting, but I don’t want to do it. But I also want to do it, and here I am folding clothes when I should be working on finishing the minutes. I’ve already done the biggest part of the minutes job, and it shouldn’t be a problem to finish it, but it feels like it is a huge job hanging over my head and I don’t want to do it.  I know I’m mostly finished, but I don’t feel how close I am. I know it shouldn’t be a big deal, but it feels like a big burden. Why am I feeling like this?  I know I have troubles finishing tasks as a symptom of ADD, but this seems different.

I also know that as I make the action list from the minutes, I will be creating a task list for myself as well as the other people in the organization. And when I’m done, I’m going to feel like I have to do all those tasks immediately instead of getting on to the tasks that are most important to me that I want to do today. I know I’m going to feel like this because this has happened in the past. It is possible I’m folding clothes because I’m trying to show myself I can do some tasks anyway that are important to me before I finish the minutes. That seems to make it a control issue; I’m trying to show I have control over what I choose to do.

This seems like a situation in which my feelings are lying to me. I don’t like that. Please help me to do what I know I need to do.

Feelings? Really?  Is it “nothing more than feelings”? 

Sometimes it is Satan.

It is Satan who attempts to hijack feelings like that. Feelings are very powerful, and they are useful for motivation, but they are changeable and can be manipulated. This is why it is a great safeguard that we are promised in the D&C the Lord will tell us things in both our mind and our heart.

When I finished my prayer, it was clear to me that Satan had been trying to attack me through my feelings. And if he’s doing that to me, he probably does that to you too. My prayers to Heavenly Father talking about the situation helped me realize it and know what I needed to do. (I trust that when I get done, I will feel happy about it, and the obstructing feelings will dissipate.)

Don’t let Satan win.

13 Keys to Greater Self-Discipline

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I’ve been feeling like I need to build more self-discipline in my life, so I went searching for principles and practices that could help me with this.  I want to share what I learned.  Some of these I can see have a spiritual component behind them, and others I have to think about it more.

1. Get your priorities straight. When you get up, think of the one major thing you are going to work on that day, the thing that if it were done you would be sooooo happy. Tackle it first.

2. Use promises to help you.

1) Make small promises to yourself.

2) Respect yourself as the general over the army of ‘you’ and do what you tell yourself to do. No whining. No complaining. No excuses. “Yes ma’am! Right away ma’am!”

3) Keep the promises you make to yourself and others. This helps build a pattern of integrity in your character. (It also ensures you don’t make promises lightly.)

3. Get rid of distractions. Put phone on airplane mode. Close email. Close all extra webpages. Close browser. TURN OFF WIFI.  Then DO IT.  Avoid checking email first thing in the morning; do it around 11am or so, after you’ve gotten a good start on hard work.  Make a goal of only checking email ONCE a day. (Treat it like your snail-mail box.)

4. Do hard work before you do something fun.  This helps build a habit of delayed gratification in small things, so you can grow towards delaying gratification in larger things for larger rewards. (And make sure the reward doesn’t undo the hard work, e.g. eating ice cream after working out.) 

5. When you think of something you ought to do, try to act on it immediately.  This builds a habit of making impulsiveness work for you. Following good impulses builds your ability to listen and follow the Spirit.

I should get in shape. Drop and do 20 push-ups now.

I should read my scriptures. Go read them now!

I should pray.  Go pray! Now!

I should call so-and-so to see how they are doing.  Call them now! If you’re in a place where you can’t, put it on your to-do list immediately.

6. Tell yourself you are doing it for the discipline, whether it is easy or hard. This sends a good message to yourself that you have a good long-term goal – discipline—that you are working toward. It feels good to know that everything good you do can contribute to it.

7. Cultivate positive self-talk. As the general of the army of ‘you,’ you must become skilled at rallying the troops. Encourage yourself. Remind yourself why you are doing the hard thing. When you fail or feel lazy, don’t yell at yourself or call yourself names. Instead, pull out your inner psychoanalyst and ask yourself why you failed or procrastinated or whatever. There is often a real problem underneath that needs to be solved first, e.g. skills that need to be gained and practiced, a gravitational well of a comfort zone that must be escaped, a lack of confidence that needs to be acknowledged and dissipated with positive achievements, some sort of negative pattern of experiences that has conditioned us to act a certain way that must be fought with positive conditioning.  Focus on finding and solving the problem.

8. Take action. Don’t stew about it. Don’t wait until you feel like doing it. Those ‘blah’ feelings LIE! Defy them! Deep down you do  care, or you wouldn’t be so annoyed at feeling ‘blah.’   “’Tis better far for us to strive, our useless cares from us to drive.”  Motivation often follows action.  Action is the best way for getting rid of that ‘blah’ feeling. Action is a positive use of agency.

9. Face obstacles head on, with courage. Things often don’t go according to plan. The more you practice facing life problems head on, the more you’ll develop the ability to overcome bigger obstacles and the more resilient you become. Your brain will adapt and grow and develop new ways of discovering solutions. Over time, you’ll find it easier to face common-occurring problems. You will meet each new obstacle with more courage, thanks to your mindset in the past.

10. Expose yourself to small amounts of hardship. You will gain satisfaction from overcoming the hardship and thriving anyway. You will learn tolerance for difficulty and discomfort, which will give you a layer of inner toughness and confidence to face future problems and obstacles.  Take a cold shower. Exercise daily. Weed in the hot sun.  Fast for 2 meals.  Work the math problem the long way.

11. Whatever it is, keep at it a little longer than you think you can. This will stretch your capabilities. It shows you that you can expand your limits.  Run 100 more yards. Work 5-20 minutes longer. 

12. Give it your 100% best effort. This is not the same as perfectionism. Best effort means complete focus of energy and attention, you search for resources to help and use them, and you ask for help when you need it.  It means you make corrections as you discover they are needed, and you deliver in the time required. In short, it means you do everything you can think of to make it work, mustering your best thinking and bringing all your talents to bear. It means you take responsibility for the outcome and don’t blame others.

13. Finish the task. Even though the shiny and excitement wears off the new project, you keep going anyway. Even though you are dying to drop everything and go do something different, you keep at it.  Some projects and tasks may be too large to complete in one blast of effort, so you’ll have to break it up into smaller pieces, but you still make sure to finish each piece.  Finishing small tasks leads to the ability to finish bigger tasks.

Conclusion

Ultimately, developing self-discipline is about creating a life in which you are not ruled by your feelings, desires, appetites, and passions.  It’s about keeping the things of the moment in bounds so you can enjoy the things that last eternally. 

Some Thoughts about Practicalities of Building Consecrating Economies

From time to time we think about the Law of Consecration and discuss the Saints in the early days of the Church and how they couldn’t live it, and we wonder how to live it today and what would be required to build Zion and the New Jerusalem.  It’s so easy to get caught up in the idealistic part of it and imagine how awesome it would be, isn’t it? 

The older I get and the more I think about it, the more I realize that idealizing it actually gets in the way of thinking it through and figuring out how to solve the problems involved. 

It seems like living a life of consecration and building Zion requires a very fine balance between a number of opposing principles. We have to know what they are and master them to get anywhere on this.   There has to be a balance between the individual and the communal, between the material and the spiritual. The idealistic doctrines and the hard economic realities must either mesh harmoniously or be held in a useful tension.  There’s also the matter of finding a way to make it work across different types of economies at different stages of development, in different areas of the world, with different cultures and law systems governing work and ownership and so on.  This is a complex challenge.

It seems to me that it is something that is learned line upon line, and consecration is a culmination of principles. I also think that the way consecration as an economy would be lived now in a modern economy is different than how the Saints tried to live it in the 1800s, simply because the type of economy we live in has changed. 

Consider just one factor—land. In an agricultural economy, consecrating a farm one owns is one thing, but when one’s livelihood comes from employment at a business one doesn’t own, what does consecration look like? A job can’t be consecrated because the employer would probably say it was never a permanent possession. Instead, one would have to consecrate one’s salary.

Maybe we should pull back a little on that and consider how the principle of consecration might mesh with that of self-reliance.

Self-reliance is about providing for one’s own needs and the needs of one’s family. To that end, we seek to obtain a good education and obtain work in a field that provides enough and hopefully a surplus. We pay our tithing, store food and build up an emergency fund for a rainy day. I think we are also expected to get out of debt. Also, budgeting helps with living within our means.

The storing of food and funds for a rainy day suggests that saving is permitted and even expected.  But then we also run into interesting questions. If one is to consecrate one’s surplus, where does one’s responsibility to provide for future expenses begin or end?  If a person always passes on their surplus to the Church, then how does one pay for large future expenses (car replacement, child’s education, medical expenses, house, retirement)?  Or should consecration of surplus happen after putting by savings for the future? 

I have no hard-and-fast answers. Maybe part of consecration is working these things out for ourselves.

Let’s think about the idea of surplus for a bit. Surplus is whatever is left over that isn’t needed. In order for us to know what is surplus, we have to get an idea of what we really need. The tool for this is the budget.

Budgets are beautiful things. Many people tend to think of them as a strait jacket, but what they are is a tool for analyzing spending, discovering your spending priorities, and dealing with financial challenges and future needs.  They help us uncover inefficiencies in our spending.  The power to reallocate funds from category to category helps us deal with emergencies, roll with the punches, control our money instead of letting it control us, and plan ahead. I really think using a budget is a skill that scales in all kinds of interesting directions. Used to the full, it can help us know whether we are materially self-reliant or not, moment to moment, rather than just at the end of the month when it’s time to balance the accounts.  All those little categories represent little bits of our material stewardship.

Let’s think about stewardship a little.  The principle of stewardship is that God is the owner and we are his stewards, so everything we have is part of that. Eventually we will have to give an account of our stewardship (material and spiritual), so we have an eternal interest in working hard, maximizing our efficiency, growing in capability, preserving what we have, and learning to make wise decisions.  Keeping and maintaining a budget is a fabulous tool for seeing how financial decisions have consequences over time.  It reveals inefficiencies. It reveals where our money priorities have been in the past, which is an invitation to evaluate and make changes if needed. 

Here’s another question I have. When it comes time to build the New Jerusalem, I wonder about how its economy will work. Obviously it will require faithful, consecrating people. The faithful people must provide for themselves, so I assume they will have jobs. In order for there to be jobs, there must be businesses and entrepreneurship.  Perhaps they will own the businesses.  But for there to be businesses, there must be demand, so there must be a solid customer base.  Where do these customers come from?

Perhaps the customer base doesn’t have to be in the New Jerusalem itself. Maybe it can be elsewhere.  But for Zion businesses to have a good customer base, the products must be superior enough and/or cheap enough among all the choices available that customers gravitate toward those businesses. (Oh look! Supply-side management! Manufacturing! Economies of scale!) Another factor that makes this tricky is that command economies tend to fall apart, so creating artificial demand or supply is not going to work.  And then there’s the can of worms of hiring faithful members without running afoul of anti-discrimination hiring laws.  Members will have to be work to be the best possible job candidate to be hired on.

Another question I have pertains to how interconnected economies are today. And yet there is a scripture that speaks of Zion becoming independent of all other creatures. Does that independence apply at the individual level, or at the level of economies? Is it possible to be interconnected and yet independent on an aggregate level?

I don’t pretend to know all the factors that have to be in place, but these are a few things that run through my mind.  What about you? 

Paul on Self-deception

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3 For if a man think himself to be something, when he is nothing, he deceiveth himself.

4 But let every man prove his own work, and then shall he have rejoicing in himself alone, and not in another. (Galatians 6:3-4)

When we think we’re something when we’re nothing, of course we lie to ourselves. And if we persist, we will also deceive other people.  But eventually we will be put to the test, and it will reveal our nothingness and disappoint both ourselves and others.

Also, it is easy to get a cock-eyed notion of what we’re capable of when we judge others or mentally charge them with neglect or pride or some other deficiency.  So often we think, “I could do better than that.”  But so often we are ignorant of what is involved—of the challenges to be overcome, of the opposing forces to be balanced, of the negotiations to be made, of considerations to be taken into account, of the skills required.  The only way to find out how good you are at something is to test yourself, to prove your own work.  That will turn into a humbling process.  Ultimately, you’ll know more about yourself and you’re less likely to deceive yourself that way again.

We can be tested by the Lord through circumstances, and we can also test ourselves.

The one time I remember saying, “I could do better than that,” I then tested myself and over the process of a year or so discovered that I had indeed been deceiving myself.  It was a painful experience, but I’m still grateful for having done it because of what it taught me about myself. It also taught me much greater respect for the person I had previously looked down on.

Certifying worthiness to go to Zion

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15 Thus it cometh out of the church, for according to the law every man that cometh up to Zion must lay all things before the bishop in Zion.

16 And now, verily I say unto you, that as every elder in this part of the vineyard must give an account of his stewardship unto the bishop in this part of the vineyard—

17 A certificate from the judge or bishop in this part of the vineyard, unto the bishop in Zion, rendereth every man acceptable, and answereth all things, for an inheritance, and to be received as a wise steward and as a faithful laborer;

18 Otherwise he shall not be accepted of the bishop of Zion.

19 And now, verily I say unto you, let every elder who shall give an account unto the bishop of the church in this part of the vineyard be recommended by the church or churches, in which he labors, that he may render himself and his accounts approved in all things….

24 A few words in addition to the laws of the kingdom, respecting the members of the church—they that are appointed by the Holy Spirit to go up unto Zion, and they who are privileged to go up unto Zion—

25 Let them carry up unto the bishop a certificate from three elders of the church, or a certificate from the bishop;

26 Otherwise he who shall go up unto the land of Zion shall not be accounted as a wise steward. This is also an ensample. Amen.  (D&C 72:15-19)

In these verses we are given some of the rules by which people were to go up to Zion. 

1)   Consecration – “every man that cometh up to Zion must lay all things before the bishop in Zion” (v15)

2)   Stewardship and accountability – “every elder in this part of the vineyard must give an account of his stewardship unto the bishop in this part of the vineyard” (v16)

3)   Recommendation by the bishop – “a certificate from the judge or bishop…unto the bishop in Zion, rendereth every man acceptable” (v17)

I think we have a mistaken idea today that anyone could decide to go to Zion and settle. These verses give us a different view. They show us that members had to have a certificate from the bishop to take with them to show the bishop in Zion that they had done what was required.  They had to give an account of their stewardship.  The certificate showed they were good stewards (a faithful laborer and wise with their resources) and they could be given an inheritance.  Everyone going up to Zion had to have that certificate, otherwise they were not to be considered a wise steward.

Once they got to Zion, there would be a stewardship interview right off the bat to assess what the new arrival had in their charge (and probably to determine any additional needs or any surpluses that could be disposed).

So, this meant that Zion was to be a place full of people who had consecrated, who were wise stewards (hard workers and wise managers of resources) and had been certified as such by their bishops. Going to Zion did not happen willy-nilly; in fact, people who tried to move there without the certificate would not be given an inheritance by the bishop. According to D&C 85: 1-5, 9-11 there was to be a history kept of those who received their inheritances and those who “snuck to Zion” were not to be listed in those records.

It is more than likely that when it comes to the point that we are building Zion in Jackson county, Missouri, this same pattern will be used again to determine who will go there.  Temple recommend interviews and tithing settlement interviews give us an idea of what it might be like to receive a Zion recommend. 

We’re pretty comfortable with tithing settlement interviews, and it is pretty easy to declare whether we have been a full-tithe payer or not. It’s kind of a binary thing—either we are or we’re not.  A stewardship interview may be trickier because stewardships can be complex.  It occurs to me that probably the best and easiest tool for demonstrating wise stewardship may be our ability to show that we can make and keep a budget and live within our means…

Observations on the poor Zoramites

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And they came unto Alma; and the one who was the foremost among them said unto him: Behold, what shall these my brethren do, for they are despised of all men because of their poverty, yea, and more especially by our priests; for they have cast us out of our synagogues which we have labored abundantly to build with our own hands; and they have cast us out because of our exceeding poverty; and we have no place to worship our God; and behold, what shall we do? (Alma 32:5)

In this verse the poor Zoramites ask Alma how they can worship God, since they have been cast out of the synagogues.

I was reading this verse recently and thinking about the predicament of the poor Zoramites, and suddenly that bit about how they had labored abundantly to build the synagogues stuck out to me.  They may have been poor in gold and silver and material things, but they were labor-rich, since hard work is the foundation of material prosperity.  It was too bad they were in a Zoramite society that revered the possession more than the labor of production that could create things, like synagogues.  The materialist attitude that surrounded them is like prizing the fruit, but cutting down the tree trunk that nourished it.

Also, I have to wonder if the poor Zoramites had been encouraged to work on the synagogues in order to exploit their labor with the secret intent to eventually deny them the use of those synagogues. Would they have worked as hard if they had known they would be cast out? The poor Zoramites clearly had expectations and felt a strong sense of ownership because of the labor they put in. (We would probably call this sweat equity today.)

Anyway, for me this verse about the poor Zoramites’ abundant labor teaches me that hard work itself is riches and success. If you can create and produce, you can prosper.  Of course, we can argue all day about wage rates, but at the fundamental level, if I can make hard work and production an integral part of my character, then I lay the foundation for systemic success and prosperity.  If my intent is to work hard more than gaining riches, then even if riches come (or go), I won’t be owned by them.  Spiritually, the love of work is more success because I can take that into the eternities, whereas I can’t take material things.

Zeniff’s division of labor by gender

1 And it came to pass that we again began to establish the kingdom and we again began to possess the land in peace. And I caused that there should be weapons of war made of every kind, that thereby I might have weapons for my people against the time the Lamanites should come up again to war against my people.

2 And I set guards round about the land, that the Lamanites might not come upon us again unawares and destroy us; and thus I did guard my people and my flocks, and keep them from falling into the hands of our enemies.

3 And it came to pass that we did inherit the land of our fathers for many years, yea, for the space of twenty and two years.

4 And I did cause that the men should till the ground, and raise all manner of grain and all manner of fruit of every kind.

5 And I did cause that the women should spin, and toil, and work, and work all manner of fine linen, yea, and cloth of every kind, that we might clothe our nakedness; and thus we did prosper in the land—thus we did have continual peace in the land for the space of twenty and two years. (Mosiah 10:1-5)

In v4-5 I noticed recently that Zeniff tells how he divided the labor among his people along gender lines. The men tilled the land and the women did the spinning and weaving of cloth.

This seemed a little odd until it occurred to me that there might be a strategic element of defense to it.  In the previous chapter, the Nephites had just repelled an invasion from the Lamanites while they were out in their fields. So this section details the things the Nephites did to prepare to defend themselves in case of future problems of the same type. 

Spinning and weaving can be done at home where it is safe, so it would make sense for the women to do that there. If the men are out tilling the fields and feeding the flocks, they would be able to notice any invading armies approaching and then warn their families and form militias to repel the invaders. 

Zeniff also put guards around the land, so the guards were the first layer of defense, and the men in the fields were the second layer.

So, this makes me think that maybe the traditions of women staying in the homes is not necessarily a narrow-minded prejudice (though it has been used as such with arguments of women’s unfitness to be anywhere else), but an ancient defensive strategy meant for times when marauding armies approaching without warning were a real threat.  In that situation, it just makes sense to divide the labor in such a way as to protect the family the best.

Applying the strategy to today’s threats, where do you think the lines of defense should be put?

Reflections on a trip to Malaysia

If you’re wondering where I was for the last two weeks or so, I’ve been on a trip to Malaysia with my husband.   I wanted to share a few spiritual lessons that I learned while there.

There is nothing like a trip to a foreign exotic place to throw you out of your comfort zone.  And leaving one’s comfort zone gives new urgency and sincerity to prayer.   Almost immediately after leaving the country, I had troubles to deal with (some rather embarrassing), but praying about them helped me deal with them with optimism and hope, and I recognized many tender mercies that the Lord gave me.  The tender mercies seemed to come so thickly that I was just astounded.

There were a number of times when we got directions to go somewhere and after following those directions, we still could not find what we were looking for.  There’s something about being lost in a foreign country that makes me feel more “stuck” than I would otherwise.  (I think it has to do with a combination of looking around and realizing that I don’t see what I expected to see, realizing that I’ll have a hard time making myself understood to the locals so asking directions again may be marginally helpful, and wandering a bit hasn’t turned anything up.)  Feeling stuck definitely called for prayer.  When we prayed, we found where we needed to go or we found out better ways to get there. 

Yes, going to a foreign place took me out of my comfort zone and brought me to my knees more often than I have been lately, and the good experiences I had with that showed me that I need to leave my comfort zone more often.  (Thankfully, there are ways of doing it without having to go to a foreign country.) Of course it’s uncomfortable, but it is desirable if I see it as an opportunity to depend on the Lord more than my own strength and wisdom.

I also realized that one of the things the Holy Ghost did for me was to grab my attention and make me notice something was missing.  It felt very peculiar, like I was a fish yanked out of the water by a hook in my brain; it was as if my attention was jerked out of whatever I was thinking about and into what I needed to notice.  If it had a soundtrack, you would hear "Pa-TING!" Story:  Once I left my USB stick in my pants pocket and sent those pants with some other clothes to be laundered.  That USB stick had most of the writing I had done for the last ten years on it.  (face-palm) (Yes, I had a back-up, but it wasn’t a recent one.) (double face-palm) The Holy Ghost made me realize my USB stick was missing a few hours before we had to pick up our laundry (Pa-TING!) and because of that, I asked about it and was able to get it back.  Happily, someone had gone through our pockets beforehand and set aside my USB stick.  If I had not realized it was missing and remembered that was where it was, I would not have known to ask for it and I would have lost it for sure.

Another time, I was on one of our flights home and I had a feeling I should check my purse to make sure nothing had slid out.  I had seen things slide out of my purse a few times before.  (I think the Holy Ghost brought this to my remembrance.) Because I checked, I discovered my Palm Pilot was missing.  (Yes, I’m a die-hard user of Palm Pilots.)  It had slid out and careful searching revealed it was under my seat.  If I had not checked, I would have left it on the plane and would not have realized it was missing until much later and then I would not have known where I had lost it. 

I learned that I got more satisfaction out of the places we toured when we did more of the work to get there, and this suggested a spiritual principle.  Let me explain.    

The first day we were in Kuala Lumpur (the capital), we took a tour in a little van with a guide, who took us to different sites in the city.  We saw a Chinese temple, we saw a Hindu temple, we saw a mosque (but didn’t go inside, since we weren’t allowed), we saw a market, and we saw a park that used to be an English cricket green back in colonial days.   That’s a lot in four hours.  It was interesting to hear what the guide said about it, but for some reason being at those places wasn’t very satisfying.  I remember afterward wondering why that was.   

But the second day (and each day after that), we started taking public transportation.   My husband is already good at understanding trains, having dealt with trains on his mission in England, so I worked on learning the train system in Kuala Lumpur with him.  Our trip to Batu Caves in north Kuala Lumpur required us to take one train, then get off and walk about a third of a mile to another train station.  That winding, twisting walk was tricky, since there weren’t any signs to direct us except for the textured pavement put in to direct blind people, and that pavement branched at least once.  We sort of had to wander.  (That was another time when we prayed.  And right after we prayed, we happened to notice a train coming into view at a distant station, which turned out to be what we were looking for.  We would not have known that was where we needed to go otherwise.)    Anyway, by the time we got to Batu Caves, I was already feeling satisfied with how the day had gone.  And I realized it was because the journey had been as much of an interesting adventure as the destination. 

And then... Batu Caves had 274 steep steps that we had to climb to get to the cave shrine itself.  274 steps is the equivalent of climbing a 21-story building.  So of course, getting into the caves felt like another satisfying accomplishment in the hot, humid weather.  

By the end of the day, after taking stock, it felt like we had done much more and had more fun even though we had only gone to one destination.   Our participation and engagement in practicing using the trains had built our skills, making us more self-reliant, and it is impossible to build skills to any extent without feeling joy afterward. 

These principles work all throughout life too.  Trying to find joy in the journey means learning how to appreciate the adventure of solving the problems along the way with the Lord’s help. Each little step we take toward our goals is something worth celebrating and feeling satisfaction about.  And when this life is over, we’ll be able to look back and be so happy as we see all we were able to do with the Lord’s help.  The struggle of finding our way will be far more worth it than if we just hopped on the bus and took a tour through life.

This is really going to help me because before this trip I was in this place spiritually where I looked upon troubles as a drag.  I had some goals and I knew I would have to learn some new skills to achieve my goals, and I was so impatient that I wanted to just skip it and find someone to do it for me.  But this experience has given me hope that the process of learning those skills and making mistakes and trying again and back-tracking and doing a little wandering is an adventure that I can enjoy, and when I finally get to where I want to be I will feel so much more joy because of the journey.

How about you?  What lessons have you learned from your travel experiences?  Care to share?

Looking Back from the Plough

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61 And another also said, Lord, I will follow thee; but let me first go bid them farewell, which are at home at my house.

62 And Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God. (Luke 9:61-62)

Jesus’s words here seem unexpectedly harsh in response to someone who just wants to say goodbye to family before leaving to follow Jesus.  Thus, it is a good bet there is a principle He is explaining that we don’t quite understand.

These verses come in a context of others who are declaring they’d like to follow Jesus and they are taught different things about the commitment required, like “The son of man doesn’t have a place to lay his head” and “Follow me, and let the dead bury their dead.”

The person in these verses wanted a chance to say goodbye to family, which seems harmless, if we assume that he had a good family who wanted the best for him and who were faithful themselves. 

But what if his family were not good people?  What if they were a major obstacle to this man in following Jesus?  In such a case, it would be better for him to separate himself and not return, since by going back even once would put himself under much negative pressure to renounce following Christ.   By asking to return to this family to say farewell, the man was certainly demonstrating his reluctance to separate himself from them.  It showed he wasn’t completely convinced that his sacrifice would bring him much greater blessings than those he enjoyed with his family. 

Jesus taught a great principle in response.  “No man, having put his hand to the plough, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God.”  Just like plowing is work, it takes a lot of work to be a disciple of Christ.  To look back is to wish one didn’t have to plough or to look back at one’s comfortable house and bed.   It is the equivalent of looking back with a sense of sorrow that one has to leave at all.  And yearning for past sins definitely makes us unfit for the kingdom of God.   To yearn for past sins and past dear associations that are nevertheless bad influences is as if one had never converted in the first place.  It means one has not really changed their heart and has only changed their behavior.  The kingdom of God is always an improvement over sin, not a step backward. 

Some converts to the church have literally had to separate themselves from their families, and thereby they have demonstrated great bravery, but not all have, and I think there are other ways of applying this story to us. 

Maybe we haven’t had to leave family to convert and stay faithful, but we have to leave behind all our bad habits and false traditions and our favorite little sins.  When we are called upon to repent, do we find ourselves wanting to “say goodbye” to those sins we feel especially attached to with a final binge before we take up the cross of discipleship? 

January First Presidency Message: The Best Time to Plant a Tree

I really liked the First Presidency message for this month by President Uchtdorf, so I want to comment on it. (My words in black, his in green.) It seems to me that one of President Uchtdorf’s great strengths as an apostle is his exuberant enthusiasm and hopefulness.    

In ancient Rome, Janus was the god of beginnings. He was often depicted with two faces—one looking back on the past, the other looking forward to the future. Some languages name the month of January after him because the beginning of the year was a time for reflection as well as planning.

Thousands of years later, many cultures throughout the world carry on a tradition of making resolutions for the new year. Of course, making resolutions is easy—keeping them is a different thing altogether.

One man who had made a long list of New Year’s resolutions felt pretty good about his progress. He thought to himself, “So far, I’ve stuck to my diet, I haven’t lost my temper, I’ve kept to my budget, and I haven’t once complained about the neighbor’s dog. But today is January 2 and the alarm just went off and it’s time I got out of bed. It’s going to take a miracle to keep my streak going.”

It’s SO TRUE!!  For some reason when we start a new resolution, it is pretty easy to do it for a day or two.. or three.  But at some point the shiny wears off and then it seems like a long, hard slog.  Or something comes up that gets in the way.  Or we slack off our effort because we think we don’t need to work as hard at it as we have. 

There is something incredibly hopeful about a fresh start. I suppose at one time or another we have all wanted to start again with a clean slate.

I love getting a new computer with a clean hard drive. For a time it works perfectly. But as the days and weeks pass by and more and more programs get installed (some intentional, some not so intentional), eventually the computer begins to stall, and things it used to do quickly and efficiently become sluggish. Sometimes it doesn’t work at all. Even getting it to start can become a chore as the hard drive becomes cluttered with miscellaneous chaos and electronic debris. There are times when the only recourse is to reformat the computer and start over.

Human beings can likewise become cluttered with fears, doubts, and burdensome guilt. The mistakes we have made (both intentional and unintentional) can weigh upon us until it may seem hard to do what we know we should.

In the case of sin, there is a wonderful reformatting process called repentance that allows us to clear our internal hard drives of the clutter that burdens our hearts. The gospel, through the miraculous and compassionate Atonement of Jesus Christ, shows us the way to cleanse our souls of the stain of sin and once again become new, pure, and as innocent as a child.

But sometimes other things slow us down and hold us back, causing unproductive thoughts and actions that make it hard for us to get started.

I’d say the experience with computers is a very useful metaphor here. (And I'm not sure why I like it so much, but I do.)

Along with repentance, we need grace (enabling power of God) to help us make it through life, but we can’t have it without giving our total effort and commitment to it.  And so often we would give that total effort except we have fallen prey to destructive thought patterns that in some way weaken us.  I love that Elder Uchtdorf teaches many principles (not just here but in other talks too) that help us discover destructive thought patterns and helps us replace them with helpful ones instead. 

I have a lot of troubles with doubts, fears, and perfectionism.  I feel like I’m always fighting it, so I appreciate principles that help me escape those unproductive patterns.

Setting goals is a worthy endeavor. We know that our Heavenly Father has goals because He has told us that His work and glory is “to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man” (Moses 1:39).

Our personal goals can bring out the best in us. However, one of the things that derail our efforts in making and keeping resolutions is procrastination. We sometimes delay starting, waiting for the right moment to begin—the first day of a new year, the beginning of summer, when we’re called as bishop or Relief Society president, after the kids get into school, after we retire.

You don’t need an invitation before you start moving in the direction of your righteous goals. You don’t need to wait for permission to become the person you were designed to be. You don’t need to wait to be invited to serve in the Church.

We can sometimes waste years of our lives waiting to be chosen (see D&C 121:34–36). But that is a false premise. You are already chosen!

I felt like this part really spoke to me.  Procrastination is one of my problems, though I don’t actually say to myself, “I’ll do it later.”  My procrastination has been in the form that Elder Uchtdorf has described above, the kind that wants to wait for the “right moment” and the kind that feels like it needs permission to do or become or start. 

My procrastination has to do with writing.  I am a writer.  So often I delay starting my writing because I’m waiting for the right moment.  But what does the right moment look like and how will I know I’ve come to it?  I keep waiting for a moment when I will feel inspired.  It is particularly insidious when it comes to working on this blog because I want to be inspired as I write about the scriptures.   The weird thing is, I’ve learned by experience that inspiration happens more while I’m working on it and rather than when I’m thinking about working on it.  So I just have to show up and start studying and writing and then it comes.

I’ve also seen some of my procrastination in the form of feeling like I need permission from someone.  One of the things I want to do is write fiction, write fabulous novels.  But I feel like I need permission!  I don’t know who from.  Maybe it’s because I have this deep-down notion that writing fiction is play, not real work.  It makes me think that just like you need mom to call the school to so you can go somewhere else during school, I need someone to call the “work police” and tell them that I have permission to write fiction for work instead of getting hired by someone else.   Maybe I need to write myself out a permission slip.  (I eventually did this.  It felt very freeing.)

I like that President Uchtdorf says our personal goals can bring out the best in us.  (Of course, he makes the implicit assumption that these goals are righteous.)  When you consider the effort that goes into working toward goals, you can see he’s right.  What else besides a goal makes you wrestle with the natural man?  Good goals always involve repentance at some level or stage.  A good goal that speaks to you fires your imagination, giving you vision.  It requires confidence and faith.  It requires you to commit and act courageously.  It requires analysis of skills and leads to learning more skills.  It leads to problem-solving.  It disciplines you and builds your perseverance.  And even when we fail, we practice repentance and re-commitment if we try again.

At times in my life I have spent sleepless nights grappling with issues, worries, or personal sorrows. But no matter how dark the night, I am always encouraged by this thought: in the morning the sun will rise.

With every new day, a new dawn comes—not only for the earth but also for us. And with a new day comes a new start—a chance to begin again.

This view of the new day as the chance to begin trying again is a big thing that gives me hope.  I’ve lived a few months when I was depressed and felt that I had no hope of anything better.  When I’ve struggled with a bad habit for so long and failed so many times, it is easy to think that there is no hope of change and that the future will get worse and worse and I should just give up and drift as the current takes me.  I’ve learned to fight this by seeing each new day as a gift of a small time that I can concentrate my efforts in.  We learn from living the commandment of keeping the Sabbath Holy that it is possible to make one day different from every other day of the week, more focused on serving God.  So we can use that same principle during the week.  Each new day we can try again to break bad habits.  Also, taking it one day at a time helps me focus on the present moment rather than worrying about the future. 

Sometimes the thing that holds us back is fear. We might be afraid that we won’t succeed, that we will succeed, that we might be embarrassed, that success might change us, or that it might change the people we love.

I’ve feared all those things at one time or another.  When fears are paralyzing, I’ve found I have to write down what I’m afraid of and try to get to the root of what is bothering me.  (I have an example of how I do this in my post about confronting myfears of introducing my neighbors to the missionaries.

It’s usually not just one fear, it is a network of fear, or a pyramid of fear, fears stacked on top of each other.  You have to pin down the fear, drag it squealing out into the day, and then talk back to it before you can kill it.

Another thing we need to remember when it comes to setting goals is this: We almost certainly will fail—at least in the short term. But rather than be discouraged, we can be empowered because this understanding removes the pressure of being perfect right now. It acknowledges from the beginning that at one time or another, we may fall short. Knowing this up front takes away much of the surprise and discouragement of failure.

When we approach our goals this way, failure doesn’t have to limit us. Remember, even if we fail to reach our ultimate, desired destination right away, we will have made progress along the road that will lead to it.

And that matters—it means a lot.

Even though we might fall short of our finish line, just continuing the journey will make us greater than we were before.

Falling short and failure is a not an end destination.  It is merely a stage in our progression. 

When I apply this to myself about my writing process, I can understand perfectly well that my first draft is not going to be a masterpiece.  It’s going to be crud.  But I can learn from it and revise.  My first novel likewise is going to fall short as well, but I’ll learn from it and revise it and my next novel will be better (although the first draft can be crud all over again.)  I can allow myself to write badly at first so I can learn from it.  (I suppose I’ll have to write myself a permission slip for that too.  ;-))

An old proverb says, “The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago. The second-best time is now.”

There is something wonderful and hopeful about the word now. There is something empowering about the fact that if we choose to decide now, we can move forward at this very moment.

Now is the best time to start becoming the person we eventually want to be—not only 20 years from now but also for all eternity.

Sometimes it takes years for us to figure out that we really want what’s good for us.  And then we wish we’d started way earlier.  I’ve heard some converts wishing they’d found the gospel earlier in life.  I imagine we all have something like that. 

At least the present moment remains for making a beginning, right?

So what experiences have you had in which you learned more from the process than you did from the outcome?