Finished

I finished reading the 4 Gospels today. I really like the fact that there are 4 sources right next to each other on the same subject: Jesus and his life and ministry. I was thinking g about comparing it to other historical events that we consider important, but obviously cannot be compared to the grandeur of the news of Jesus Christ, which is not just important, but essential.

When I was in high school, I read two books on US history: Paul Johnson's "History of the United States," and Howard Zinn's "A People's History of the United States." They were very different books, as the names suggest. By reading both, I understood the issue better than I could have reading either one individually.

The example of these US history sources is different from the four Gospels, because the Gospels are not presenting different opinions. There is one opinion, that Jesus the Son of God was born in Bethlehem to fulfill God's promises and create the path to our salvation. But they do have different audiences, so they share different perspectives. Together they really do create a fuller picture.

It's really fun to read the 4 Gospels back to back. Sometimes it feels repetitive, but most often it's just nice to get as much information as possible.

"For we have not followed cunningly devised fables, when we made known unto you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his majesty." 2 Peter 1:16

The Gospel of Matthew

This is going to be a short post. I just finished reading the Gospel of Matthew and these are a few thoughts I had while reading it.

1) An overwhelming feeling of how revolutionary Jesus's teaching was to the people of the day. The ideas that he presented must have been shocking to the people. He recreated their paradigm, committing them to "the weightier matters of the law, judgment, mercy, and faith: these ought ye to have done, and not to leave the others undone." (23:23) It's nice that he includes that little line at the end, like saying "I'm not saying the stuff you're doing right now is bad, I'm just saying that when you have to really choose what stuff is most important, you're looking at the wrong things."

One of my favorite line's from Holzapfel's New Testament class was in response to Jesus's attempts to reverse the deeply-engrained social custom of the time that had no doctrinal root. "Jesus is saying 'I just need you to know that what our culture says about cleanliness is bologne.'"

2) Matthew really felt strongly about getting some points across to his readers. He hammers some of these points in so strongly in attempts at making there be no doubt what the facts were. These are:
a) that the life and ministry of Jesus, including his miraculous birth, his crucifixion, and his resurrection, were nothing more than what was foretold by the prophets, and need not have been a surprise to his disciples or his enemies. Furthermore, every last prophecy that was made prior to that time about the Messiah was fulfilled or will be fulfilled. There are no surprises in this regard.
b) that Jesus's life was miraculous. The text fits resembles the form of other biographies of a similar era. When I read with these eyes, sometimes I do feel like I could be reading about Buddha or Mohammed, the constant travels, the deliberate, intense, short statements of teaching, the miracles, the surprised reactions of followers and dissenters, the followers who accept the invitation to pattern their lives after him. The reason I say this though, is to make just one point. I really do believe that these things all happened, and they are incredibly remarkable! Imagine being there at the time and seeing this man who in the space of three years you watched raise people from the dead, heal the sick, confound the wise, minister to the weak, and teach revolutionary doctrine focusing on kindness and faith. It's impossible for me to imagine! Matthew does a great job getting this point across.
c) Jesus understood the whole time what was going on. Everyone else didn't get it, or was trying to figure it out the whole time and finally did at the end. Even the apostles, over and over again, profess their devotion to Jesus but are reminded that he knows them better than they know themselves. They don't understand that he will rise again after he days, so his death is worse than the death of a friend, because they thought it was impossible. Finally, at the end of the Gospel, they start to understand the Gospel they preach and the Savior they are witnesses of.
d) Confusions cleared up that Jews of the day would be worried about, or would find fault with. For example, Matthew dwells a lot longer in explaining Jesus's birth and again later, to make sure the reader knows that Jesus was not born from an illicit relationship.

3) A feeling that Matthew is really writing to the Jewish people of his day. I like reading the text as if I were part of his target audience. This doesn't mean the text isn't helpful to me. It just means that when I read from the perspective of a 1st century Jew, the stories Matthew includes make so much more sense. I find it a lot easier to understand why Jesus did the things he did.

Savior of the World

I just walked in the door from attending the play "Savior of the World" done at Christmas time at the conference center. The play is divided into two distinct acts, one about the birth of Jesus, and the second about His resurrection. This makes it possible for the play to be performed at Christmas or Easter. Mary and Joseph carry the majority of the first act, and the second is transferred to the Apostles, Mary Magdalene, and other witnesses.

I have fond memories of this play, especially of the music. As far as I can remember, this was my first time seeing the play, but I have had a copy of the soundtrack for a while, and there have been times when I have listened to it very often. The music is gorgeous. Some of the music has changed now from the recording that I have. It looks like the script has been revised as the years go on.

One feeling that I recall when I think about Christmas is warmth, probably literal and just a feeling. In California it was really the only time we ever turned the heater on in the house, so I learned to associate the sound of the air coming through the heater vents with the December month leading up to Christmas.

Just as distinct is a memory I have of an apartment I lived in as a missionary. It was a few stories up in a tall building. I lived there during my first Christmas as a missionary. My sister was living in Boston at the time. It was close to Connecticut in the sense that we shared the same weather patterns, and the drive on the freeway was direct and fast. It also felt far like it were across an ocean, my little industrial city southwest of Cambridge. We spent our days so differently, enjoying our east-coast home in such different ways.

One night after we were asleep the buzzer rang from downstairs. I realized when I heard the voice that it was she, and we ran downstairs. She had gone, but left enough Christmas treats to fill the entryway floor. A roast, fresh fruit, trader joes knickknacks, other stuff we hadn't stumbled upon in the previous several months.

We put up a Christmas tree and lights in the apartment. It was heated well, and we came home so tired and cold that I don't remember whether the extreme comfort we felt in our beds was a false reality to us or not. It was a very real Christmas, though. We brought food and gifts around to the families whom we loved and who loved us, and had far less resource than we did even as missionaries. Christmas Eve we drove several miles north to spend the afternoon with a man who was dying for some company and had ordered pizza in preparation for our arrival. He was equally excited to show us his keepsakes from the marines and the several Christmas decorations he had put up.

The next Christmas I was in a city far different than the first, this one wealthy and well-adorned, the type of place where you knew it was winter because the polo field was covered with snow. Here Christmas was purchased, and pretty effectively too. There were enough perfect pine trees with snow and lights to make the most anti-commercial Christmas lover feel a little bit of joy. The city was old and gorgeous, and the roads curved through patches of dark forests to open up to a fancy set of houses, a little village of high-end shops, or a preserved natural area. This time I don't remember it being warm in our apartment. We created warmth here, turned the heater full blast when we got in the car, studied underneath the heating vent, drank hot chocolate, and slept underneath many piled layers. Christmas Eve we had a wonderful dinner with a jolly Jewish family that had become Mormon. Christmas morning we ate breakfast at the McDonald's in the next city over.

It was warm on New Years Eve, when we spoiled ourselves putting on the ESPN sweatshirts a neighbor had given us for Christmas to bring treats to our Mission President's house, to play dominoes with them until the clock reached midnight. Our car was actually a truck, and we would drive home in the dark and the snow on a night like this one feeling safe and calm. I thought about my life and myself in the third person, though.

This Christmas has been cold so far. Nearly all I've thought about is how I can effectively zip my down coat more completely around my face as I hurry and complain between classes and the apartment. I don't know if the missing ingredient is literal warmth, or the warmth that emanates from a giving heart. Do I miss the rush or calming air when I return home at Christmas time, or the stirring comfort that someone has been thinking of me and prepared a warm home, and as it was as a missionary, being sure that other people knew I was thinking about them?

It's 12:15am. Outside the gentle neighbor to our north in the apartment complex is shoveling the walks. He and his wife brought home their first child just a few weeks ago. I'm sure it's warm in their apartment.

New Testament Class

On the last day of my New Testament class, we wrote short free response papers explaining what effect if any the class and the service projects associated with it had on us. I wrote a more substantial response than I was accustomed to writing for an assignment like that. I felt like the way that I benefited from the class was real and substantial.

In previous Religion classes, I have felt like there was a lot of emphasis on grades, and often grades were based on fact-memorizing, probably so that the class would feel substantial and we would need to study. That's good to get us to study, but it also got me to focus less on spiritual understanding and more on whatever I needed to do to get an A, because it was important to me to get a good grade. As a result, I rarely felt spiritually strengthened by my attendance and my study. It was just material to cover.

I found that the teacher's approach in this class was a little different. We still read a lot, read the 4 Gospels, and another book called "Between the Testaments: From Malachi to Matthew." But tests would cover basic concepts, essay format, about each of the Gospels, who wrote them, when, where, and for whom, and most importantly a large section on what the writer's main goal was with the text. The test certainly evaluated what we learned from the class, because we had to include lots of concepts from class discussion. It also left room, though, for us to talk about much more important concepts, especially, what the purpose of these Gospels is and what we can gain from them.

This final comment is somewhat ironic. After attending this class for several months, there is one thing that is especially positive that I feel like I gained from the class. I feel like my testimony of Jesus Christ was strengthened during this period. I often found myself pondering outside of class about simple things we discussed in class about Jesus. Sometimes I would read the scriptures and run into ideas that caused me to remember what we had discussed in class. This happened when I attended the First Presidency Christmas Devotional. I think that spiritual learning experiences like that are a really good sign that small miracles are occurring with regards to the things I'm studying.

My teacher said on the first day of class that his goal was to look at these texts from the eyes of those who wrote them, then using the right lenses, we will get the clearest view of what Jesus was like when he was on earth, how clear his example was, and how revolutionary and faith-inspiring his teaching was. The four Gospels offer different perspectives on the same person, allowing a tremendously complete view of him.

I'm grateful I took the class. I am very satisfied with what I gained from it. It was a great study of the 4 Gospels and Jesus Christ as presented in them.

Good Vibrations

...Which actually means good motivation. Somebody was talking about 1 Corinthians 13 in church on Sunday. It is one of my very favorite sections of scripture.

I think that verses 1-7 utilize various techniques to help the reader understand how important charity is. Paul uses comparisons to other qualities that he expects we already esteem as highly important or of highest importance, and declares charity greater. He uses strong hyperbole, saying that even carrying these other characteristics but without charity one would be "nothing," like smoke that rises just to vanish away. In verses 4-7, Paul also describes people who exercise perfect charity, to help the reader further understand how broad its effect will be in promoting good within a person.

Verses 8-13 explain why charity is the most important quality, using various metaphors to represent our obscured understanding of an eternally sound list of priorities, and promising that when we pass onto the other side, our vision will be as crystal, and we will see that in fact charity is the greatest of all the virtues.

9) "For we know in part, and we prophesy in part."
Paul generously and honestly includes himself in the group of people affected by temporarily impaired understanding of what things really matter.

10) "But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away."
When we pass beyond this difficult and confusing world of opposing forces and mixed messages, when that which is perfect has been given to us, Eternal Life and the presence of the Father and the Son, it will be clear like day and night what qualities make Them who They are. We will understand simply and fully that it is not strength, resource, or any other quality esteemed by men that made God and Jesus the beings we so love, but it is in fact their love. "We love [them] because [they] first loved us." (1 John 4:19) If we have spent our lives developing qualities or treasures other than those Jesus taught, they will be of little importance, and will not be cherished in the life to come.

11) "When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things."
If we choose to follow Jesus, we will do it in our love for God and others, in our generosity, our unconquerable hope, and our determination to the end, because that is what He asks, and that is what He did. He was the "model of modest nobility" (Pres. Uchtdorf, 2008 Christmas Devotional). With this sure understanding, obtained by faith, let us now put away the things we know will not help us follow him, and embrace the goodness of the path he has prescribed.

12) "For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known."
Paul reminds us that our short understanding of eternally important things will not last forever. The last phrase could even mean that we will remember and know our Father in Heaven as well as he knows us now.

13) "And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity."
Even among Godly virtues, it is love for others that brings us closest to God. "Love is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the pathway of discipleship" (Joseph B. Wirthlin).

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One simple reason that I like this chapter is because of how much I feel like I grow in understanding of God and His characteristics as I read it.

And now back to the motivation part: If I were to try to live the Gospel by making a list of all the things Jesus did when he was on the earth and trying to mimic a Christian lifestyle, it would be hopeless. But is I can understand the qualities that motivated His actions, and work to adopt those qualities through the way that I live, I will feel a desire to make choices like He did.

Sunday

I woke up early yesterday morning, thinking that I was assigned the lesson if the Family History class in Sunday School. I was tired but happy as I sat in my office on campus and read through scriptures and quotes about the subject of the lesson. A few hours later I walked a couple buildings over to where my ward meets to be told that we were meeting all together for Sunday School that day, so I didn't need to teach. Next week we'll have Sunday School in the Family History Center, so I don't need to teach then either. I wasn't disappointed. I liked the study and I was relieved to not have to teach about a subject I was just barely learning about.

I was surprised as the hours of the day went by because I felt so good during the whole day. Starting the day with a scripture study like that did wonders for how happy I felt and how close I felt to the Spirit.

It was fast Sunday, and although I would like to share my testimony, I usually don’t because there are just so many kids in the ward who rush to the pulpit right at the beginning that I don’t want to join the mad rush. This time, though, there was a moment with about 10 minutes left in the meeting when there was an opportunity for me to speak, so I did. This is what I said.

I am grateful for the season where in, between Thanksgiving and Christmas, and like those holidays, it is a time when I feel especially grateful for my Savior.

I sometimes try to think of ways to describe spiritual things in words that make sense to me, hoping that they will then make sense to others and I will be able to put into words certain things that are important to me. I think that feeling the Spirit is as if my spirit or soul is a tuning fork. It has a certain native resonance to it, characteristic in the original makeup of the material. Just like the tuning fork, when I hear or see something that is on that eternally true pitch, this something deep inside of me moves, and even becomes a very powerful and happy feeling, and nothing but that pitch can produce it. Nothing but spiritual truth can cause that reaction in me.

I felt that way during the Sacrament meeting. The testimonies were all short, less than 3 minutes, and Christ-centered. When testimony meetings are like that, they are my favorite church meetings.

I also feel that way with music, and there is one hymn whose words I especially like. It is “Savior, Redeemer of My Soul.” The words are these:

Savior, Redeemer of my soul,
Whose mighty hand hath made me whole,
Whose wondrous pow’r hath raised me up,
And filled with sweet my bitter cup!
What tongue my gratitude can tell,
O gracious God of Israel.

Never can I repay thee, Lord,
But I can love thee. Thy pure word,
Hath it not been my one delight,
My joy by day, my dream by night?
Then let my lips proclaim it still,
And all my life reflect thy will.

O’er-rule mine acts to serve thine ends.
Change frowning foes to smiling friends.
Chasten my soul till I shall be
In perfect harmony with thee.
Make me more worthy of they love,
And fit me for the life above.

The Beginning of Christmas

I went to the First Presidency Christmas devotional last night. It made us feel much closer to Christmas, and we judged that the only thing left to make us feel like Christmas was upon us was some snow, and mid-morning today big flakes started coming down in Provo.

My biggest reaction to the fireside was how deeply calm it was. The music was simple and somewhat quiet and moving. The First Presidency's talks were very sober, maybe partly in respect and remembrance of Elder Wirthlin's recent passing. These events at the Conference Center with the Tabernacle Choir and the organ playing at the Prophet speaking are consistently penetrating to me. I always sit there in this unbelievable euphoric self-aware feeling. These certain feeling that I feel when I listen to the Prophet and to the music at the Conference Center come often, but are in no way common.

Perhaps the most royal of the feelings of last night was the holiness of this time. So much of the traditions we remember at Christmastime are godly in nature. I would like to mention 3—The Birth of Jesus, family, and charity.

In the opening prayer, Elder Callister said, “We thank thee, Heavenly Father, that the beautiful Bethlehem story is true.” Later, President Uchtdorf talked about the way Jesus chose to enter into the world as the complete foreshadowing of the way he would choose to live his life—in perfect humility, requiring nothing for himself, always doing everything he could for others, a "model of modest nobility."

All my Christmas memories have to do integrally with my family. I like it for the same reason that I like Thanksgiving. Any opportunity to bring us together to the most important people for us in all the world and to gather us for a completely positive reason is wonderful.

President Uchtdorf also shared a wonderful quote from Elder Wirthlin, in part honoring the passing of a dear friend. He said “Love is the beginning, the middle, and the end of the pathway of discipleship.”

Before going to the broadcast I didn’t realize it was Christmas yet, and I certainly hadn’t adopted the idea to do what I can to make it holy, Christ-centered, family-centered, and focus on what I can do to make it special for other. I gained something from the Fireside, and I also really loved it.

A replacement for road rage: Tech Rage

I mentioned in an earlier post that some scriptures are hard for me to understand immediately if they're too symbolic or too generalized, so I try to think of what they would mean with respect to my daily life. One example I hear a lot of people following this same process is saying that one thing they need to clear from their lives is road rage. This isn't a good example for me. I almost never get angry because of cars around me.

So a good example of something that makes me feel the way I don't want to: tech rage. If my computer doesn't work just right, I want to through it off a cliff. I think this has to do with the scriptures.

"Blessed are the meek: for they shall inherit the earth." Matt 5:5

"Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. Whosoever therefore shall humble himself as this little child, the same is greatest in the kingdom of heaven." Matt 18:3-4

Supporting the underdog

I read this article in the Los Angeles Times today.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-goldberg2-2008dec02,0,6411205.column

In the spirit of supporting the underdog, I post it here. I think it would be interesting if somebody had made a count of articles in major newspapers regarding gay marriage laws in California, tallying the number in favor and against the recent Proposition 8. More specific to this article, it would interesting to know how much the newspapers have published defending the right of Mormon voters to campaign and vote yes on Proposition 8, in comparison to articles condemning that type of involvement.

I feel very strongly about the importance of the family, and that it is ordained of God. I also think that the question of lawmaking to create a moral and kind and strong society with today's pressures would be difficult. They're not easy issues at all. For the simple reason alone of this being a complicated issue, it deserves attention from point of view. After all, the majority of people in 30 out of 30 states where there has been a proposed marriage amendment have voted in favor of traditional marriage.

So in contrast to so many articles supporting the other point of view, here is one of the only articles I have read in the recent past defending the right of a group of people, marked by religious preference, to campaign and vote on an issue that is important to them.

Contention and the blessings of service

What is the Spirit of Contention?

Last week I borrowed a pair of skis from my brother to go to opening day at Snowbird, and while I came down the middle of the groomed run with a million people around me, I hit a rock that, I found out later, destroyed my brother's skis (see picture!). I called him and he was very nice about it, said they were just extra skis anyway.

The following week, he asked me very directly to not use them again. I didn't like that. It was Saturday evening, I was returning to my house in Salt Lake, and I became so angry and frustrated because of the conversation. The extreme feelings of the story are what proves my point: I had this ridiculous and unreasonable feeling that filled me for almost an hour with dumb convictions like, "Fine, I'll just never ski with my brother again," or, "If all he cares about is skis I'll just buy him 10 new pairs then it will be his problem."

There are sections of the scriptures that I have to interpret in my own words every time I read them or I don't understand them. A good example is 3 Nephi 11:29, "For verily, verily I say unto you, he that hath the spirit of contention is not of me, but is of the devil, who is the father of contention, and he stirreth up the hearts of men to contend with anger, one with another."

If I just skim over that phrase, my brain throws back a "Does not compute" response. The interpretation that I've adopted is that whenever something happens that makes me filled with whatever that feeling was after that conversation with my brother, that is the bad spirit that this verse is talking about. It is totally illogical, but controlling enough that it can make me feel negative about my relationship overall with one of my very best friends, with whom I have nearly all very positive interaction.

Filling in the blanks that doctrinally explain what happened in this story, it connects to a General Conference talk from Elder Bednar a while back. He cited two scriptures:

"Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them" (Psalms 119:165)

And the antidote for bad feelings:

"Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

"But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you. …

"For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

"And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

"Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect" (Matthew 5:43–44; 46–48).

Part 2: A fortunate situation to fall into

Before my parents left for Asia last Thursday, they asked me to promise that I would clean up the leaves in the backyard before the snow fell. When I arrived home on Saturday, just following the conversation with my brother, I knew that I might not have another chance to clean up the leaves. So I got to work at about 6:30pm, in the dark. There were a lot of leaves, eventually 16 large trash bags full, and I worked until 9pm or so.

After working about 15 minutes, I started just chuckling about how dumb my feelings had been. After 30, I forgot about them. And 15 minutes after that, I remembered that I had felt that way, but I didn't feel it at all anymore. So service (love they neighbor) turned out to be the appropriate antidote.

I sipped the scriptural antidote of love (serve) thy neighbor (your parents) and my symptoms disappeared-- in the most natural way in the world, my anger left and peace (the psalm) replaced it.

Why I don't win a Nobel Prize

Paul Krugman won the 2008 Nobel Prize in Economics. Here is some of his best early work:

http://www.princeton.edu/~pkrugman/interstellar.pdf

I'm not ready to win the Pulitzer Prize because I don't know as much about economics or the theory of relativity as Krugman does.