For example, I knew this really intelligent girl (who would later end up as valedictorian of my first high school) who for some nutty reason believed that Mormons had horns that glowed in the dark once you turned off the light. I mean, she ran out of the band room once when my sister turned off the lights after a long day of practice. She may have had all the so-called facts in her brain, but she never quite comprehended that regardless of difference of belief, human beings just don't have horns.
But this is an extreme example. Let's use a more simple one. You may have heard it before: "Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit. But Wisdom is knowing not to put it in a fruit salad."
Basically, you may have all the facts, but lack the understanding to apply them.
I knew this Ukrainian lady who used to say, "There are a lot of doctors who know smoking cigarettes and drinking alcohol are bad for them, yet they do it anyway."
So, how can we be wise? How can we apply wisdom to our intelligence?
The world confuses 'smarts' with wisdom a lot. But a high IQ is not a sign of wisdom.
Personally, I think real wisdom requires humility. It is less impulsive than having 'smarts'. For example being 'street smart' may buy a punk 'street cred' and help him navigate a dangerous neighborhood. But a truly wise person tries to get out of the bad situation entirely, and starts by avoiding dangerous entanglements. A wise person admits to the need to learn more and keep learning. A wise person thinks before speaking. A wise person hesitates before making judgments. And a wise person allows for the possibility of being wrong.
The opposite of wise is foolish.
Fools are impulsive, mostly. It is YOLO thinking.
In fact, what cracks me up about YOLO thinking is that it is that thinking that makes your life so short. It just puts the Darwin Awards in mind.
So, a challenge for you all today. To change the idiot trend of YOLO, we should be thinking "You've Only Got One Life...don't waste it." You've got only one chance to make an impact on the world, as you will not pass this way again. Partiers are not remembered. They are forgotten. The wise leave a legacy of good behind them, and they are remembered and quoted.
To put it plainly, it is the difference between Lindsay Lohan and Emma Watson. Both are/were talented actresses with lots of potential. But one is tabloid fodder, and the other is working for the UN trying to make a difference in the world.
Why is Wisdom a Godly trait?
Honestly, God's wisdom is something only fathomable to those that know Him. The world sees God's wisdom as foolishness. But His wisdom is more in what He values and what He wishes we would value. And what does He value? Our true growth and salvation.
This one will be short because this is an obvious virtue.
To be valiant is to defined as showing courage and determination. But I think being valiant has more to do with sticking to what is right.
I mean, have you ever really heard of a valiant Nazi?
The factor of truth is what makes being valiant a virtue. It isn't just courage and determination. Hitler was determined to take over Europe. And I'm sure when he started in his career, it took courage to stand in front of a crowd to speak. But what he was sharing was so awful, so sick and wrong that it took an enormous amount of truly valiant people to stop him.
So, being valiant has more to do with defending truth and what is good. The rest is a counterfeit.
Hmmm. Speaking of counterfeits, I think I'll do a post on them in the future. I have noticed that the world we live in is full of counterfeits posing as truths. For example, half-truths are still lies. It was how Lucifer tempted Eve...he told a half-truth. The truth she grasped, the lie, she didn't.
There are a lot of counterfeit virtues out there. And some virtues are also twisted or "wrested" into something not true at all.
For example, let's take the word sacrifice... The true meaning of sacrifice has been so brutalized that people tend to use it to mean taking something and destroying it to get something else you want - either God's favor or an ultimate goal. Like the saying: "You can't make an omelet without breaking a few eggs." Yet sacrifice in its pure form is defined first by Merriam Webster as: "the act of giving up something that you want to keep especially in order to get or do something else or to help someone." Which is closer to the truth.
How do I know it is the truth? Because something inside of well-adjusted human beings revolts at the concept of human sacrifice, collateral damage, and animal sacrifice. Even killing an animal for food is difficult for the majority of meat eaters, and they would rather have someone else do it. My mother grew up on a farm, and she would say that it took a lot to kill a chicken. Not just the physical difficulty actually catching and killing it, but getting up the nerve to. It takes a sort of numbing yourself out of general practice. You get used to it.
But this is a complete tangent, due for another day.
The opposite of valiant? Cowardly and timid. Such as being afraid to stand up for your beliefs. Or trying hard to blend in with the crowd because you don't want to stand out.
Valiant people stand out.
People like:
Martin Luther King Jr. Nelson Mandela. Joan of Arc. Florence Nightingale. Cochise. Gandhi. Malala Yousafzai. Chief Joseph. George Washington. Harriet Tubman. Susan B. Anthony. Rosa Parks. Emmeline B. Wells. Hans and Sophie Scholl. etc...
Truth is, all of us want to be valiant. It is just so scary to actually do. Because many valiant people die for their beliefs.
Such as Helmuth Hubner, who, like the Scholls, spoke out against Hitler. (yeah... it all comes back to the Nazis for some reason. They were just so nasty that it is hard to think of anything worse to stand up against.)
Being valiant is the quality we love in our fictional heroes. And though we love their back story, their humanity, and their foibles, we love them more because they did not give up.
How is this a Godly trait?
Honestly, any good father is valiant in the defense and teaching of his children. God, being the ultimate Father, is valiant in continually teaching us, even when we spit in His face. And He does not give up on us. His faith in our capacity to learn from life is definitely a sign that he is valiant.
I know I really should be getting back to the Alphabet of Virtues, but for some reason this has been on my mind a lot lately.
I'm still thinking about patterns. I tend to see them a lot in things. Especially when reading the scriptures.
For those who don't know, I'm LDS. That is, I am a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. We've been nicknamed Mormons because we have additional scripture which we use in companionship to the Bible called the Book of Mormon. Outsiders to our faith tend to imagine us as people who follow with blind faith, assuming we aren't allowed to ask questions or are naïve about the history of our faith. That couldn't be further from the truth. Some people might follow due to tradition. You get that in every faith, really. But our leaders actually encourage study, education, and a heap load of introspection and pondering. We just don't talk about the nitty-gritty of our faith because most people can't handle it. Milk before meat, as they say. But the basic core of the nitty-gritty is this - life was meant to be difficult.
What?... you might say.
Most people naturally hate unpleasant things. Naturally people want things to be easy. But that is like expecting a free ride through school. That is like expecting to end up like Arnold Schwarzenegger while bench-pressing pillows. Not gonna happen. In our faith we have a saying, which you are going to hate: "The natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the Fall of Adam...." The purpose of life is not about staying in our natural state, but to grow up and transcend this natural state. We are naturally soft, flabby, and lazy. Becoming spiritually buff requires spiritual exercise.
But humankind is kind of thick-headed. So God created this physical teaching method using real-life events and actions to teach eternal principles. This method is called the Similitude.
For example, during Jesus Christ's life, he taught people through stories, parables. This enabled him to teach concepts that were abstract to those ready to receive them. Likewise, the similitude is a set up of life events (linked with religious ordinances) that teach eternal principles.
For example, we believe in a literal Adam and Eve. We also believe their relationship is a metaphor for human relations. We don't see Eve as evil, as some religious sects do. We see her as someone who took a difficult step, perhaps a little to rashly, yet recognizing that we had to leave the safety of the garden and God's presence in order to experience life and grow. There is no passage that said Adam beat on Eve for eating the fruit, or yelled at her, or belittled her. Fact is, he stayed by her side and went with her. And they worked together and suffered together. Unfortunately, the Bible gives a truncated version of the events, as time is not good to old records. Many books were lost. And political agendas are even worse to them (read 1984 if you don't believe me).
Throughout the Bible there are life-event stories that act in similitude to eternal principles. I'll make a list of some of them here:
Incidentally, a Chinese girl
showed me that the character
for boat is composed of 3
characters that actually say 8
'mouths' on a boat. The same
number of people on Noah's ark.
Coincidence? Possibly.
Noah and the ark - in the similitude of the ordinance of baptism. The earth had a literal baptism and renewal, a chance to start over after being overwhelmed with wickedness.
Abraham sacrificing his son Isaac - in similitude of the sacrifice God made when giving his son Jesus for our sins; he was chosen to bless the nations of the earth, just like with Abraham's son.
Lot, his family, and the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah - in similitude of how you must leave sin, and never turn back to it. Lot's wife had turned back, and was 'turned into a pillar of salt' (I'm sure Lot did not go back to taste her to find out if this actual detail was true, so let's assume this is what she resembled to him). Note that God would not destroy those cities until after Lot and his family left the city.
Joseph being sold into Egypt and later saving his own family thereby - This is in similitude to the restoration of Israel. The lineage of Joseph was promised the birthright, not Judah (Judah ended up with the lineage of kings instead. The birthright refers to the Melchizedek priesthood [which is a higher priesthood than that held by the Levites], among other things). And it is the responsibility of those with the birthright to help restore Israel.
Moses leading Israel from Egypt - This is in similitude of Christ leading people from worldliness; much of the events of Moses's life was a type of Christ. From his birth, when the children were killed, to the institution of the ordinances he taught. Moses is the most revered prophet of the Jewish faith, especially since the law proceeded through him to the people. He went in between wayward Israel while they were in the wilderness, and God. This is also symbolic of what Christ does for humanity.
Manna from Heaven feeding the Israelites - The Israelites had to pick it off the ground daily, except for the Sabbath. They could not take more than their daily share, or it would go bad. Jesus himself used the phrase, "I am the bread of life." It was a physical teaching tool meant to show the Israelites that they were entirely dependent on God... something they seemed ironically clueless about for over 40 years of wandering in the wilderness
People of Israel looking to the brass serpent to live after being bitten by poisonous snakes in the wilderness - in similitude of Christ being raised on the cross. Even now people are called to look to Christ and live.
I have to note that serpent symbols are common in the Middle East (and in the Americas, by-the-way) are often used in connection with gods.
Quetzalcoatl
brazen serpent
caduceus
Egyptian serpent symbols are frequent
Which is why I think it was apt that Lucifer also took the form of a snake in the Garden of Eden, as a counterfeit to God with the intent to usurp his authority and influence.
Jonah being in the whale for 3 days - in similitude of Jesus's death and resurrection, known as the sign of Jonah in Christian circles. It was also a sign to the Ninevites that they could be redeemed.
And many ordinances and rites of the people of Israel and before are also Similitudes. For example:
Animal sacrifice - first born lambs, without blemish - this is in similitude of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ... a law given to Adam and Eve. Abel's sacrifice had been from his flocks. It is also one of the reason's Cain's sacrifice was unacceptable. Most religions in the ancient days practiced animal sacrifice. And, interestingly enough, most animal sacrifice ended not long after the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth... around 70 A.D.
Passover - Everything about the Passover is symbolic of Christ's death and resurrection. No bone was to be broken. The lamb had to male, a year old, and without blemish. It had to be eaten entirely, with no leftovers - as Christ must be accepted entirely, with nothing left out. The passover lamb had to be slain on the eve of the Passover. Incidentally, that is the very time Jesus of Nazareth was crucified. This is why Christians call him the Lamb of God. The Passover itself was instituted while Moses was in Egypt, and it was held during the final plague that redeemed Israel from captivity. Much of the symbolism points to a redeemer.
light was often a symbol of God
The Festival of Lights - which is also a similitude of Christ and what he represents. Jesus gave his Light of the World message during this festival, probably to illustrate best what he represented to the world. And though this festival started at the dedication of the temple that was rebuilt in Jerusalem, temples themselves are symbols of God's home.
an example
The wearing and use of phylacteries/tefillin - This is an incredibly obvious similitude of a spiritual action, done physically. These are small black boxes that contain scrolls from the Torah, worn on the upper arm to be close to the heart, on the forehead to be close to the mind, and there are others like this, at the doorways that they touch their fingers to and kiss. This physical rite was intended to remind the faithful to always keep the commandments of God in not only outward action, but in inward devotion. Notice how the strap on the arm links the box at the heart to the fingers on the hand. This indicates action, doing what your heart tells you to do.
A physical ordinance to teach an eternal principle
The Sacrament/Communion - Jesus actually explained this one to his followers. It is in the similitude of his body and blood. Like with the Passover lamb, it is to be eaten for the benefit of the person. A physical symbol of the broken body of Christ and his sacrifice for us.
I have not listed them all, of course. That would take forever, and I am hungry and need to stop writing. ;)
Fact is, God does not need our worship.
Worship is not for Him. It is for us. This is why Jesus said Man is not made for the Sabbath, but the Sabbath made for Man. It is a special day of intensive training, spiritual rejuvenation, and growth.
Remember, a real teacher is not in class for the paycheck. The class is for the benefit of the students' progress. The best teachers know this.
When we worship God, read our scriptures, and practice the devoted rites of our faith, we learn more about God, and.... to quote Tevye from Fiddler on the Roof, "what God expects him to do."
And though for many of us it is a tradition that we may not understand, one day we'll all find meaning in it. Experience itself is a blessing from God. And though life is not meant to be easy, it is meant to bring us true and lasting joy.
From a zygote to a fully formed being.
Even from a small trickle of water to the ocean.
This is the pattern of life.
When this pattern of growth is disrupted, what you get is death.
Pull the seed, it dies and the progress has ended.
Abort the zygote and the person that could have been no longer can be.
Stop up the trickle of water, and you create a dam where water can become scummy, fester, and become toxic. Water specifically has to continually flow in order to remain fresh and healthy. I think that is why when people talk about human progression the word damn is used. In the same way, through sin, human progress is stopped, turned scummy, and life becomes toxic.
So, if life's pattern is to progress, and the end of life is death, then it can be safe to say that most living beings desire not to die. Likewise, if sin brings about an end to human progress towards becoming like God - which if you haven't noticed in the previous blog is the purpose of human existence - then we also are dammed like a river...our progress stops. We fester and die. This, of course, is spiritual death rather than a physical one. But the spirit also affects the physical.
So, I'm going to propose a pattern to you. This is the eternal progress of mankind in a metaphorical sense.
Before we were looking even remotely human,
we had potential to become something great.
Pure, protected, within the protection of our mothers,
we resembled our parents, yet were not really able to do what they could do.
We wanted something they had - an opportunity for life. To grow and become.
We came with hopes and dreams
Mimicking our parents
Ready to learn
But our comprehension is that of a two-year old. We don't really understand things as much as we think we do.
And sometimes like a teenager we think we know everything. And we don't want to listen to what our parents have to say because we think it is too demanding or restricts our freedom.
This last place is where most of us are.
But life is a school.
We're here to obtain the knowledge and skills we need. But some of us don't like to sit still. Or obey.
Some of us, sadly, flunk out. The teacher's don't want us to.
But in the end, our success or failure is determined by our choice
in applying what we are supposed to learn.
The purpose of school is to teach us the life-skills necessary for us to become an adult.
If we fail at becoming adults...? What then?
Scary thought...
And what do adults do once they become adults?
Well, duh.
Adults work.
They have responsibilities.
They continue their education and gain more skills.
They live life and help others.
And they perpetuate life....
This is the purpose of life.
This is why we are here.
As I said earlier, this is a pattern. In life we see the pattern for the eternities.
Alright, the stuff after this is the actual doctrine, according to how I see it. If you can't stand hearing LDS doctrine, leave this page and go do something else.
If you are curious about the beliefs of the members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, then keep reading.
Where do we come from?
"From dust thou art..."
The universe is made of dust... did you know that? I learned this in astronomy. Dust and energy.
Our origins are not ex-nihilo. We are in essence light,
and we come from Light, as matter can be neither created, nor destroyed.
But, it can be organized.
Born in the spirit, children of God, before the foundation of the Earth.
Learning at the feet of our Father. We grew, like infants, in the care of our loving Father.
But there is only so much you can learn at home,
just as there is only so much progress a person can make in the safety of the womb.
You have to go out into the world to truly grow up.
We've been sent off to the most exclusive private school there is:
Earth
Why are we here?
We are here to train in the habits, knowledge and skills we need to progress on to the eternities. These are character habits, things of the heart, and physical restraint. We learn how to control our urges and desires, much like a person learning how to drive a car.
Sad to say, some drop out of the program. Some hate the rules and the self-restraint we have to have in order to succeed. Some ditch class. Some even disagree with the teacher about the facts being taught. And some perpetuate rumors that are not only false, but detracting from the learning we are to acquire. And like children at school, there is bullying, cheating, and trouble that even parents cannot stop. There will always be a culture within a culture that subverts what the teachers and parents want, because in the end it is up to the kids what their futures will bring.
So... what is after this school of Earth?
That is what is decided in 'school'. Do we get nothing more than get the spiritual equivalent to a GED? Do we drop out? Do we prepare for the spiritual equivalent of college or a technical school? Do we have plans for anything at all? Or are we just playing around and goofing off?
Where are we going?
I know we always show Heaven as clouds and light.
But I really don't think we are hanging around plucking harps with halos on our heads.
I'd rather have the after life look like this. ;)
Anyway, those that have done their best and taken advantage of their time on Earth will gain all the blessings of Spiritual Adulthood as that is what they have developed into. Heaven may be a place, but it is more a state of becoming. It is real freedom. A rebellious teenager might think dropping out of school is freedom, but a full-fledged adult who finished high school has more opportunities. Likewise, by following God's plan in life, you gain more opportunities as your capacity has been expanded. Those that have learned from the Teacher (who is Jesus Christ in this case), and have taken advantage of all He has to offer, will most indeed graduate with flying colors and go on to the next phase of eternal life.
So, what happens once we get to this state of being?
I've not reached that, of course, as I am still at school. But I can tell you what has been taught to me, as far as my limited understanding goes. Assuming the pattern is correct, then I'd say Spiritual Adults will: go to work, have responsibilities, continue their studies, and perpetuate life.
How?
I don't know. I told you. I'm here. Not there. Still the spiritual equivalent to a kid. I think we will have to wait for answers on this, just like you have to wait to explain graduate school to a two-year old.
But what about those that screwed up?
What about those that did not really obtain Spiritual Adulthood, but remained like manchildren and failed to launch? See, I don't see Hell as a place where people burn for eternity. It see it as the place where you remember how badly you blew it. We call separation from God spiritual death.
Regret is it's own personal prison.
Hell is going back to see our Father in Heaven and know all that we have done wrong, and to have to stand in his presence with this full consciousness. It is in fact more merciful NOT to stand in the presence of God in this case - like not giving a calculus problem to a child knowing only rudimentary math.
Which is why God, in his mercy, has prepared a place where people don't have to be in his presence, feeling this guilt 24/7. In my faith, we call them degrees of glory. But it is the same concept of Christ's: "In my father's house there are many mansions."
In my faith, we believe all mankind receives according to the degree of obedience to God's commandments and according to his/her acceptance of His way of life and His Son's atonement. That is to say, if you live the Celestial law, you receive Celestial glory. But if you lived a more Terrestrial law, you get a more Terrestrial glory, and so on. You are also not held accountable for what you have not been taught while on Earth. In fact, you are given a chance to learn about those things you missed out on after you have died, for our Father is fair. And with that chance to learn, you are also given a chance for obedience to the higher law and toe obtain the blessings of obedience to that law. But people who purposely rebelled...that's another story.
In simply layman's terms, if you want to make it to graduate school, you have to have a good GRE score, excellent grades, and a wonderful track record. And you have to use the mentor provided for you (Jesus Christ). No ifs, ands, or buts. Because He is the one who actually gets you in.
This pattern above is why I say the purpose of life is to become like God. In fact, it is a commandment from God, told to us through Jesus Christ.... to be perfect - even as God is.
Yes, It sounds exhausting.
But like all journeys in life, you take them step by step.
And remember that we have been given help.
Wise is very different from being intelligent.
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