Thoughts on Forgiveness

I just finished reading Unbroken by Laura Hillenbrand, and this post will discuss it in some depth, so if you haven't read it but want to without spoilers, feel free to do so now.

I've read quite a few POW books and quite a few World War II books, and it seemed like Unbroken would be the same kind of story...average joe (well, usually they are more than average - they had some sort of popularity before the war) who is thrust into atrocious circumstances and survives despite the odds.  For the first while, that's how it was.  Louie Zamperini was a world class runner who ended up crashing in the ocean.  After spending some 40 days on a raft going 2000 miles across the Pacific (see below), he
View Larger Map
was captured by the Japanese on Kwajalein Atoll and then sent to Ofuna camp (Kamakura area), followed by 2 tours (one at Omori - in Tokyo Bay, just north of Haneda airport and one at Naoetsu, on the Sea of Japan) under one of the most sadistic camp guards in the Japanese system - Mutsuhiro Watanabe, aka The Bird.  He was so bad that he ended up being a Class A war criminal, right up there with Tojo.  He was irrepressibly brutal to the POWs, beating them on a daily basis, debasing them, and doing everything he could to make life miserable.  Life in the camps wasn't exactly like staying in a Hilton, it wasn't even as good as life in the Hanoi Hilton.  After the defeat of the Japanese empire, Zamperini went home, but couldn't bring himself to forgive his captors.
This inability to forgive didn't help Louie get over the war.  Instead, night after night, he had nightmares where The Bird was trying to kill him and he was trying to kill The Bird.  As Hillenbrand said, Louie was the captive of The Bird even after he returned from the war.  This spilled over into his personal life, ruining relationships and driving him ever deeper into alcoholism.  Finally, as his wife was about to leave him, he found religion and forgave his captors.
How do we apply this to us?  The first thing that struck me was how the principle of forgiveness has been misunderstood.  We assume that it's for the other person - the one who has wronged us.  We get wrapped up in whether they deserve forgiveness or not.  Instead, it's not about them - it's about us.  We are required to forgive everybody because ultimately it hurts us if we don't.  The Bird went about his life and made millions, never knowing or caring whether Louie forgave him or not.  Louie couldn't move on until he had forgiven The Bird.
I know that there are people who have done horrific things to others in this life, should they be forgiven?  I think this is a bit of where the problem comes in.  If they do something to me, I should forgive them...whether they should be forgiven or not for their sins is up to God and God alone.  However, as long as we continue to harbor ill feelings towards them, we are in their power whether they know it or not.  As we decide to forgive and forget, we are set free from the prison of hatred and despair that keeps us bound to the past and can move on with our lives, free with the knowledge that God is just and that He will return good for good and evil for evil.  He is a perfect judge and will do what is best for everyone.  Stephen Covey says "it isn't the poisonous snake bite that does the harm.  It's chasing the snake that drives the venom to the heart," and that's what not forgiving someone does - it eats at us day by day until we finally stop and rest from our obsession and allow the cleansing power of the atonement into our lives, and with it, the peace that forgiveness and letting go can give us.
One of the big things that I've been learning is the power of letting go.  We can't control everything and if we try, I think it slowly drives us crazy.  Not in the institutional sense, but stress wise it pulls us tighter and tighter as we try to balance everything in our lives.  As we get pulled tighter, little things that may otherwise not be an issue can cause us to snap.  By letting go of some of these things, we can acknowledge the reality that we can't do everything ourselves and let grace take a role in our lives.  It's an eternal paradox that by giving up control of some things, we gain control of all things.

Gender and the Priesthood

On Times and Seasons today, they had an interesting post that hypothesizes The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints puts out a declaration that mandates leaders come from minorities because too many Caucasians have leadership roles.  In the end, it was to talk about women getting leadership roles in the church.  Right now in the LDS Church, just as in most churches, the Priesthood leadership is made up of men.  Is there a possibility in the future that this could change?  Sure.  If it does, I will certainly support it.  At this time though, I don’t believe that it would happen, nor do I think it’s wise.  Why is that?  Read on for my top 2 reasons:

1. The Proclamation on the Family.  The church has pushed the importance of traditional family roles, with the father being a provider and the mother at the center of the family.  What if women were suddenly available to be Bishops, Stake Presidents, or General Authorities?  The church is now taking them out of their traditional roles and putting the father there.  While I think I do a great job with my kids, I can’t imagine putting me in that role instead of my wife.  She is absolutely incredible with the kids and I’m so grateful that she’s able to stay home with them.  To take her away from that for extended periods of time would be absolutely incompatible with established church doctrine, not to mention harmful to the most important group in the church: the family.
2. The blending of the genders.  This is something that I’m really not a fan of.  I know it runs counter to the past 40 years, but there are some fundamental differences between men and women.  For starters, there are the obvious physical differences, but there are also other differences too.  Men and women mature differently.  They have different types of brains.  I’m not just making this up, there’s a whole host of scientific data to back it up.  I hate to break it to people, but there is a big difference between your typical man and your typical woman.  I certainly think there are areas where it can blend, and gender equality is important, but so are having specific roles.  Women tend to be better multitaskers, they tend to be more maternal, and they tend to be more empathetic.  Men tend to be better at cutting through a single task, they tend to be more aggressive, and they tend to be more aloof from a situation.  What is it that children need?  I would argue that while they need both, if they had to have one or the other, I’d choose the female traits.  It’s not to say that either is better than the other overall, but I would absolutely argue that in the most important area of life - raising the next generation - women are better than men.  As such, I think that commoditizing women and their role by tossing them together with men eliminates the things that make them special in the first place.

Another Reason Keith Olbermann Should Have Stuck with ESPN

If there is another person out there who drives the discussion into the gutter more than Olbermann, I'd like to know who they are. Any time that you label someone who makes a comparison that may be slightly out of bounds (at least in your opinion) as "one of the worst people in the world" perhaps you should toss yourself up there on the screen as well. On top of that, it takes a certain amount of hubris to lecture a former Supreme Court candidate on law when you yourself are a former sportscaster and current full-time blowhard. How could this have been different if, instead of doing a drive by defaming, Olbermann actually asked Elder Oaks for an interview where he could have had a civil conversation? Oh, that's right. Oaks would have been seen as the rational one, which would have completely ruined Olbermann's point. Take a look at Elder Oaks' clarifying comments below the MSNBC video:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

He Has His Reward

The Wall Street Journal's Best of the Web had an interesting post yesterday. Barak Obama went to the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem and inserted a prayer, as is tradition among Jews. He's not Jewish, so it's just a nice photo op and a chance to say "look, I love Israel too!" (I'm not criticizing him in this aspect - if you're a politician and you end up in Jerusalem, or even within 500 miles of Jerusalem, you get that photo op.) However, that's where it gets a little dicey. From Taranto:

This set off a bit of a kerfuffle, as the Israeli newspaper Maariv published the prayer, purportedly filched by a seminary student. IsraelInsider.com has the text:
Lord--
Protect my family and me.
Forgive me my sins, and help me guard against pride and despair.
Give me the wisdom to do what is right and just.
And make me an instrument of your will.
Haaretz reports that "Jerusalem lawyer Shahar Alon asked Attorney General Menachem Mazuz yesterday to order a police investigation into the removal and publication of Obama's note":
"By making the note public," Alon wrote to Mazuz, "Maariv violated the law protecting holy sites, several clauses in the penal code and also infringed upon the basic rights of a person's honor and freedom."
Alon also initiated a boycott of the newspaper. . . .
Maariv's response: "Obama's note was published in Maariv and other international publications following his authorization to make the content of the note public. Obama submitted a copy of the note to media outlets when he left his hotel in Jerusalem. Moreover, since he is not Jewish, there is no violation of privacy as there would be for a Jewish person who places a note in the wall."
Thus, as IsraelInsider puts it, "what initially seemed to be a journalistic scoop of dubious moral propriety now seems to be a case of an Israeli paper being played by the Barack Obama campaign." Obama's so-called prayer was at best an open letter to God--a sentiment intended for public, not divine, consumption.

Now, from Matthew 6: 5-6

5 And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward.
6 But thou, when thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly.

I think that about sums up my opinion as well.

Sorro's Apostle Pick

I'm in the airport waiting for my flight to Washington to go tell Congress to give me more money, and as usual it's during General Conference. I don't know why it's the case, but for some reason I've missed something like 50% of General Conferences because of conferences. Nevertheless, I had to get my keno pick in and I am sticking with Elder Kikuchi for my pick. I'll find out if I'm right when I get to Washington!

Monday Quick Hits: Percentage Inflation, Snake Oil, and Immigration

-The WSJ's Numbers Guy had a nice post today about the inflation of percentages and goes on to point out some of the more egregious examples of ridiculous percentages: Fortune's use of 1,000,00 percent to describe Warren Buffett or a clergyman pledging 1,000% commitment. Of course, he left out the most off the wall and insane inflators of percentage, Randy Jackson and Paula Abdul from American Idol. If a contestant is good, rarely will they be let through with anything less than 1,000,000 percent. In fact, if Paula (who, by the way, is crazier than a cage containing both Michael Jackson and Mike Tyson) really likes you, she'll pull out the made up numbers like one million bajillion percent. I'll say this right now, I'll never give more than 100%. Not because it's not possible (although it is) and not because it's stupid (although it is). It's because saying things like that actually makes you dumber. As Jackie Moon would say, "that's a fact."
-My mom just spent $4,000 on a machine that "makes water alkaline." According to people who don't have a chemistry degree, water is acidic. If you drink it, you'll die (slowly, but just the same). On the other hand, if you drink alkaline water, you'll cure your cancer, gangrene, mental illness, regular illness, and a whole host of other things. In fact, it's a miracle cure. According to people who have taken a chemistry class, it's a load of crap. As someone who has taken chemistry classes, I remember the last ionizing wave - that little ball you put in your laundry machine that ionized the dirt off your laundry and cleaned them without detergent. We had a good laugh at the idiots who bought that (and yes, my Mom was one of them) because it's sheer hucksterism. The difference here is that those laundry balls were only about $15 whereas this is 4 large. What's really amazing is that the actual science won't change people's minds here. When you say that it's impossible, they just roll their eyes and go on about how science can't explain the mysteries of the Orient. I would proffer another supposition: the mysteries of the Orient are the same mysteries of the guy from Nigeria who keeps trying to get his money out of the country. In a related story, I bought $2 worth of pH strips on Amazon.com to prove my point.
-We had caucus training this weekend and as usually happens, we talk politics afterward. One of my precinct chairs is insanely against illegal immigrants. (I think I've mentioned here in the past that he would put soldiers on the border in concrete towers manned with .50 caliber machine guns and a shoot on site policy. Apparently he thinks that the Berlin Wall was a great idea.) We talked about the LDS Church policy towards illegals (essentially "leave them be or help them out") and the Apostle who signed the letter representing the Church's position, M. Russell Ballard. We are both Mormons and he called Elder Ballard "a traitor to his country." He might disagree with the opinion, but that's a bit ridiculous. I suppose it's possible that he believes the Constitution is a higher authority than God's servants here on Earth, but why is he still a member if he believes that? Wouldn't calling Him out (assuming that you believe an official - or very close to official statement was infalliable) be a tipping point? I think that he's just a half a bubble off plumb in this area. It's opinions like that that drive illegals to become a permanent underclass, dependent on crime or criminals to survive. Let's get rid of the mote in our eye before we start going for the illegals' slivers.

GA Keno

While it's not on record, I have to say that I called it! What did I call? The new First Presidency of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Mormons). Forro and I play a little game that I like to call General Authority Keno. I call it this because we call the leaders of our church General Authorities and because, like keno, you place bets on individual slots, in this case, the pictures of members of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles and first and second Quorums of the Seventy. Because that would be downright semi-sacreligious as our church specifically says not to gamble, we play for bragging rights and perhaps the occasional meal. Anyway, before they are called, we place bets on who will be called to the next open position (upon the death of one of the other Apostles). I have a pretty good record on this, I'm at around .500, with both of my good calls Elder (now President) Uchdorf. He just made sense. At any rate, I do declare that I am placing bets on Elder Yoshi Kikuchi and Elder Carlos Arroyo, both members of the First Quorum of the Seventy on the new vacancy in the Quorum of the Twelve. Of course, those of you who aren't Mormons who read the blog may not care about this. I guess it would be the equivalent of Pope Keno if you were Catholic and placing bets on the cardinals who would become pope.

Mary Magdalene and the Divinity of Christ

My wife and I just got finished watching The Da Vinci Code while we've been here in the hospital and as a big fan of the novel as well, I got thinking about one of the central tenets of the book, that Mary was the Holy Grail and the impact that would have on things, specifically on people's faith. Would it shake people's faith to the core, or would it reawaken it for some people. As a Mormon, I don't think it would do much. We believe that Christ was our example in all things. Because we are commanded to "multiply and replenish the Earth" and because marriage is a divine and good thing and something that most people should do, it stands to reason that Christ would be married. Moreover, it's pretty logical just from the four gospels alone that if He was married, it would probably have been to Mary Magdalene. Whether they had children or not is something that may or may not be accurate (although the Merovingians had claimed that blood line) because what a burden that would have been. Can you imagine going to a job interview and having somebody say "tell me about yourself." "Um...well, I'm the son of the Savior of all mankind, I ski, and I love monkeys." How awkward would that be for somebody? Also, how difficult would that be? It's bad enough being the scion of a noteworthy or wealthy family, but to have the blood of the Son of God running through your veins is another thing all together.

I could see how it would shake some faiths, because when you look at some of the teachings of the Catholic church, priests would get angry. "You mean I took a vow of celibacy for nothing?!" That's right, you'd have anarchy. One thing is certain however, that if you believe Christ was divine, marriage wouldn't challenge that. What would is if he slept around outside the bonds of marriage. That would do it because it's something that is specifically preached against in the scriptures, whereas marriage constantly is sanctioned with the occasional "you don't have to be married" or "not married? Good for you" quote.

Huckabee's King James Constitution

I would love to have a video link right here and perhaps when it gets up on YouTube I will be able to, but this is disturbing on so many levels. I think Joe Scarborough and almost everyone on MSNBC (the perpetual 3rd wheel among all-news channels) are windbags, but I totally agree with him on this: "Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's and unto God that which is God's." Huckabee doesn't, as evidenced by this story. The prose itself isn't fantastic, but the video at the bottom of the page is where the real money is. It's Huckabee himself saying that "we need to change the Constitution so it fits God's standards." Those who have been afraid of Romney kowtowing to the LDS line in Salt Lake should get real close to their TVs and listen to that because Huckabee has gone out and said that he wants to amend the Constitution to fit God's standards (implicit in that comment is the idea that it will be the Southern Baptist version of God's standards). That's a scary thing there. One of the great things about the nation has always been its moral foundation without State sponsorship of a religion. This turns that on its head where he would have the Constitution not only be based on Judeo-Christian principles, but be based on his interpretation of them via his experience as a Southern Baptist minister. I don't care who you are, that's frightening right there.

Faithless in America

There’s an op-ed in the New York Times yesterday that aims to infuriate everybody in the LDS church. In it, Frank Rich takes Mitt Romney to task for not denouncing his church as racist before 1978. If he realizes the implication for this then he knows he’s asking for something impossible, if he doesn’t then he needs to do some research. If Mitt was to say that he believed the church was racist in 1978 he would be saying one of two things: the church doesn’t operate on revelation but on the ideas of a bunch of old men and therefore it isn’t true or God is a racist. Either way it’s a pretty earth shattering thing to say for political points. It would be the equivalent of Joe Lieberman criticizing Moses for drowning all those Egyptians or engaging in ethnic cleansing during the conquest of Palestine. It’s not going to happen, nor should it be asked. What I would say (and actually do) is that it’s unfortunate that blacks didn’t have the priesthood before 1978. That doesn’t mean it’s a racist policy, it’s just what the Lord wanted for one reason or another and I’m not about to question His reasons. It's the same with polygamy, and I'm sure that from the outside looking in those are calculated decisions made by a group of conniving old men in Salt Lake, but for those of us in the LDS Church that's not the case. Instead of sitting in your Ivory Tower and making observations from afar, get out and go to Africa. Ask those Saints who waited decades to become official members of the church despite there being a "racist policy" in the Church and no missionaries to speak of to baptize them. They organized, led meetings, and prayed and waited for the day when the Lord would open the priesthood to them and allow missionaries to come to Africa. A fantastic overview is in this talk right here. Tell the hundreds of thousands of Pacific Islanders, Asians, and even African Americans who were members of the church and took advantage of what it had to offer all the way back to the time of Joseph Smith that they are being disenfranchised. I am surprised he didn't level a sexist charge at us as well for not allowing women to have the priesthood. The bottom line is that he ought to do some research, interviewing some actual church members about their opinions before bashing Romney for not condemning God for being racist.

A Peculiar People

There are definite reasons that Mormons are referred to as a peculiar people, perhaps no more so than our proclivity for "deep doctrine" - those things that aren't readily explained in the scriptures. This unfortunately gives some of us a tendency to go into deeper doctrine - things that aren't really explained anywhere, except in our heads. In other words, total bull crap. I've had a couple of experiences with it in these past few weeks. My first brush with bull was in a gospel doctrine class (for those not in the know, that's essentially a class where we get together and discuss the scriptures). We were talking about 1 and 2 Peter and the teacher had our self-proclaimed gospel expert get up and explain "Calling and Election Made Sure."
Again, a definition. According to Joseph Smith, having your calling and election made sure is when you recieve the second comforter, i.e. see Jesus Christ. It's something that seems to be pretty rare, indeed, if you weren't ready for that, you're damned to an eternity in purgatory. That's why you have to be at a certain point in your progression to have it happen and why it is exceedingly rare (I would posit that there are perhaps 15 people on the planet who have had this happen at any given time). Despite this being the official position as explained in commentaries and the like, our resident expert proceeded to say that this was something that happened in our temples. There are many ceremonies performed in our temples, including marriages, but this caused me to perk up because I had never heard of anything like this, and I consider myself pretty learned in all things Mormon. He said that people would go into a room in the temple, hear "This is my beloved son, hear Him!" and then see Christ. It was really starting to sound like bull at this point, but then 3 other people in my class backed him up. I was open to the fact that perhaps this was something I'd never heard of before, but it seemed awfully strange. It didn't sound like an ordinance, it was very, very exclusive, but not in the "you have gotten to a point where this is possible" sense, just in the "you're getting a call from the office of the First Presidency" sense. I asked a few people whom I consider actual gospel scholars about it and who have been around quite a bit longer than me and they told me it was a load of crap that was going around a few decades ago and it's been passed on to our generation now. While I do believe that there is something that may occur with regards to seeing the Savior, I think it's pretty restricted, i.e. if you aren't a member of the Quorum of the Twelve, you're not going to be getting that opportunity any time soon.
The second instance is one where my aunt, who I think has gone a bit beyond the bounds of normal channels. She has prophesied the following things: an earthquake in Salt Lake Valley next year and a worldwide famine that would start in April 2008 and be announced by President Hinckley in January. While I know that famine is one of the tools in the "punish the wicked" arsenal, it's a more local tool. I could see pestilence or disease or a mondo earthquake before that. I also am a firm believer in the priesthood line of authority, where this particular revelation, if it was indeed to be spread by anybody, would have been given through the head of the church. Instead, she has chosen not to observe the council of Boyd K. Packer when he said that (and I'm paraphrasing here) the members of the church would receive more revelation if they would keep quiet about what they got. She definitely isn't in the keep quiet category, so I find this highly dubious that suddenly she's getting revelation for all these people. You might as well put her in the same category as Bishop John Koyle and the Salem Dream Mine. Will I make sure I have a year of food storage? Sure, that's the prudent thing to do anyway. Will I also take what she has said with one of my 25 lb bags of salt too? Indeed I will.

I'm Impressed

ESPN has a story today about Cleveland pitcher Paul Byrd. I'd never heard of him until he outpitched the Chen Ming Wang/Mike Mussina combination and then proceeded to do the same to Tim Wakefield yesterday. I have to say that I'm downright impressed with his beliefs. Sometimes it seems like sports stars "use" God in the "look at me, I'm pious!" sense. They get their reward, the attention, but then there are a group who actually try to practice what they preach. Byrd's one of them and he's written a manuscript about his beliefs and his struggles. Head over and give it a look. It's definitely worth 5 minutes or so.

Getting Biblical

Last night I got thinking about Adam and Eve. This is a classic Biblical account that almost everybody has been told for millennia now. The real questions is how "real" is it? One of the LDS Articles of Faith states that "We...believe the Bible to be the word of God, as far as it is translated correctly." That being said and with the caveat that I do indeed believe a lot of the Bible to have been translated correctly and I especially believe that the antediluvian account as told in the Book of Moses to be translated correctly, how much of it is an actual, literal honest-to-goodness history and how much is allegorical and/or a parable.
There are some aspects that I think are definitely accurate - i.e. there was a man named Adam and a woman named Eve (or whatever their names were in their language). The question is were they the progenitors of the entire human race or perhaps just a subset of them. Perhaps Adam was the first prophet and the house of Israel descended through him? Perhaps he was the paterfamilias of some of the major groups in the Middle East but not of groups here on the American continent. We know, and the Hebrew backs it up, that the Earth wasn't created in 7 24 hour days, but rather 7 periods of time. Likewise, I think it's highly unlikely that Adam lived for nearly a millennium. It's more likely that that was exaggerated for some point or another. Since the Biblical account of the creation and ancient Earth history was from Moses' time period perhaps there was a more definitive account of what exactly happened and the Israelites knew more about the time of Adam and this was meant as a type for their lives or somesuch. I'll probably revisit this more because it's such a vast topic, but does anyone else have any thoughts? Post a comment!