I have two reasons to write this blog. First, I enjoy writing and want to write better, so I want to practice. Second, and more importantly, I want to dwell on spiritual things and writing about them seems to work for me. Hopefully, someone else can benefit from this, too.
If you think about it, God clearly doesn't need it. He is not made more perfect, more glorified, or more our Father when we praise Him. He does not store up praise in a bank account, He does not live off it, nor does our praise do anything for Him that He is not capable of doing.
Nor does praising God directly give us anything in return. We are not accumulating a praise-balance nor exchanging praise-units on a divine market for blessings. Instead, praising God is intended to change us, just as all the holy habits of discipleship do. By acknowledging the beauty, sublimity, greatness, and holiness of our God, we come to better understand Him and these qualities He perfectly embodies. By correctly identifying our subordinate relationship to God, we put ourselves in the mindset we need to be in to receive from Him.
That's why it pleases Him when we praise Him--the praise means nothing to Him but if done correctly, it can mean the world to us.
It's Christmas time, and I can't help but be inspired. One of the many things that inspires me is Christmas music, and one song in particular jumped out at me this Sunday morning. It's the words to Away in a Manger. Here they are:
Away in a manger, no crib for his bed,
The little Lord Jesus laid down his sweet head;
The stars in the heavens looked down where he lay,
The little Lord Jesus, asleep on the hay.
The cattle are lowing, the poor baby wakes;
But little Lord Jesus, no crying he makes.
I love thee, Lord Jesus; look down from the sky
And stay by my cradle till morning is nigh.
Be near me, Lord, Jesus; I ask thee to stay
Close by me forever, and love me, I pray.
Bless all the dear children in thy tender care,
And fit us for heaven, to live with thee there.
One of the many lessons I draw from this song comes from the last line, when the worshipers pray that Jesus "fit" them for heaven. I think of this process as being roughly analogous to when a tailor fits a suit for someone; another term would be "alter."
Like it or not, we have imperfect natures and histories, and we need redemption. Jesus is the source of that redemption, but it's not a painless process, for our very souls have to be "fitted." In other words, we must be pulled, pinched, folded, sutured, sewn, and extraneous fabric needs to be excised, all while sitting very still like a toddler getting his first haircut. Our jealousy, sarcasm, lust, gluttony, and every other imperfection that has accreted onto our souls needs to be transmuted into generosity, kindness, love, and temperance.
This isn't the work that can be completed in a single lifetime, but it's a work we can choose to accept. That choice is an incredibly vital one: should we choose to come unto the Lord, we will spend our lives (both mortal and eternal) striving toward Him and the exaltation He promises. However, when we accept the Lord into our lives, we accept him shears and all. If we refuse the shears, we accept the faults, and we're not fit for heaven.
So let us accept the alterations that the Lord would make on us. Let's remember that the most important mortal being on this earth was essentially born in a barn and executed with criminals. Let's take lessons from childrens' songs, because after all, maybe everything I need to know in life is a derivation of something I learned in Primary.
For several weeks, our dear son (15 months old) had trouble sleeping through the night. He would wake, either because he was coughing, or hot, or hungry, or for some other reason, and would cry and wail. He knew how to put himself back to sleep, yet for a short time it seemed like he had forgotten. Late one night I remember doing everything I could to comfort him. I put him on my shoulder, I held him in my arms, I shushed him, hummed to him, sang to him, prayed for him. Nothing would console him, and he kept arching his back and wiggling to get out of my arms.
The solution we finally came to was to lay him on the carpeted floor on his back, then sit down several paces away. He would impossibly cry harder for a few seconds then look around for my wife and me. I would then tell him that if he wanted a hug, he would have to get up and walk to me. He would do so, and from then on it was much better going.
Sometimes I think we are the same: refusing to take comfort in any of the loving kindnesses our Father gives us every moment of every day. We want comfort, but can't adequately conceive of how to get it, so we wiggle and arch our backs painfully then wonder why nothing we do seems to work.
In these instances, sometimes the Father has to put us down and step away, not because we've necessarily been rebellious but because by doing so He can reset our minds and intents to come to Him. When we come to Him, we receive comfort, and are soothed.
Better still, however, to come to Him constantly, to look for the comfort he is raining down on us like dews distilling from heaven, and to accept it and be soothed. Because just as it is a measure of maturity in an infant when he can soothe himself to sleep, so it is a mark of spiritual maturity when learn to constantly turn to the Lord for comfort and peace no matter the pain, suffering, or confusion which surrounds us.
Have you ever loved badly performed music and the forced recital of amateur narration? Once a year in the vast majority of Church wards and branches, there seems to be a celebration of it. Little children are forced to memorize or read lines depicting what they've learned in Primary over the year. They sing, with little professionalism or skill, songs that could be way over their heads, especially for smaller Primaries. In smaller branches, the number of children attending week to week can swing wildly, making practices even more difficult. During the presentation itself, the children often freeze, forget, fumble, or improvise, making the entire thing an exercise in adaptation. Unquestionably, the Primary program is the most stressful event of the year for Primary leaders.
And it's wonderful. It is, in the words of one member, a "glorious train wreck."
Why do we do it? What spiritual value does flat music and rote recitation provide? I think it is more of a learning experience for the children than for the adults-so what exactly are we teaching them?
I think we are teaching them that everyone has a part to play. No matter how badly we sing, we all have a voice, and it needs to be heard. No matter how simplistic, we all have testimonies, and they need to be shared. No matter how modest, we all have contributions, and they should be made.
Recently, I've been playing the piano for my branch's Primary (not the Primary shown above, that was a random video I found on YouTube) and I've come to the realization that I don't play the piano all that well. Well enough to plunk out a melody for the kids to learn a song, but add in that left hand and some people singing and things can quickly turn south. I do okay with the hymns because I've practiced those for years, whereas I've only just picked up the Primary songbook. So when the Primary presentation came up this year with my not having practiced the songs enough, I realized that unless I simplified some of them I would make a mess of them.
My pride didn't want that--this was my time to shine, to beautifully accompany the children and impress the branch with my musical prowess. Eventually, though, I had to let that go. I still made a number of mistakes, sometimes losing the left hand entirely. I settled for what the children needed (a simpler piano part that didn't distract them) and guess what: no one noticed. Or if they did, they didn't mention it. The children sounded (relatively) great, and the lessons were taught and learned.
Ours is not a passive religion. Sure, Heavenly Father could do it Himself...but He has chosen to let us do the work for Him. Rather than sending angels to accompany us with harps, He sends mediocre piano players. Rather than sending an orator of the ages, He sends us to speak in Sacrament meeting. And rather than calling the qualified, He qualifies the called, making our feeble efforts and less-than-stellar results actually be enough. Just as the widow's barrel of meal could not waste, or the cruse of oil could not fail, so our own paltry strivings for the Kingdom will actually end up being sufficient.
In my current Day Job, I work with inmates in a correctional facility. It can be a bit of a challenge, in that essentially my job is to try to convince hundreds of very large, very violent toddlers to comply with the rules and regulations that other people (who don't commonly deal with inmates) create.
I have a reputation for being strict, and one day an inmate stopped to talk to me while I was manning a metal detector. He tried to convince me that I should be less strict through two general arguments. First, he made some moderately subtle threats about what happens to overly-strict correctional officers during prison riots. Second, he actually tried to convince me that it wasn't the staff but the inmates who were running the institution, and that it was important for staff to not displease them (referencing argument number one). Inmates, he said, were the largest controlling force in any correctional institution because they were more numerous and violent than staff.
Though it seems laughably naive, I got the impression that the inmate at least partially believed it. While there was certainly some part of his little speech that was self-interested and trying to get me to relax my guard, I could see that from his point of view inmates were far more in control than they actually were.
From his point of view, even though inmates are told by staff when and where to eat, sleep, work, and play, the inmates are in control because they run a few black-market side games. They gamble, they exchange stamps for homemade food items, they fight, they compete for prestige, they affiliate with gangs, they conspire, and most of all they gossip. The inmate is surrounded by inmate behavior, while staff only intrude upon it occasionally, making it seem natural that inmates are far more in control than they really are.
Sometimes I wonder if this point of view is mirrored in our views toward God. Do we think, sometimes, that we have control over things that we do not? Do we inflate our own importance simply because we are surrounded by the works of our hands? Do we fail to see the eternal because we are surrounded by the mundane?
If inmates really and truly did control a correctional institution, it would quickly degenerate into an anarchic dystopia where no correction or rehabilitation could occur. If we mortals actually controlled this world, the same would happen.
To be perfectly honest, if I controlled every aspect of my own life, I'm pretty sure I would make a royal mess of it in the first ten minutes. I don't understand my own self enough to make good decisions about what trials I should face, what blessings I should receive, or how I should interact with others.
Thankfully, I have a Heavenly Father who loves me and provides me everything I need. He provides me with the air I breathe (and the lower brain functions with which to breathe it), He provides me with blessings and trials with which I can learn and grow. He has provided me the Gospel, the Way he wants me to interact with others (and essentially, with myself). And He provides me grace when I fall short, allowing me to rely on the merits and mercies of Jesus Christ to gain eternal life and, over the course of eternity, become like Him.
That's why I'm glad I'm not in control. I'm not content to be in control if the only thing I have control over is a two man cell with a poker game and some candy bars. So I'll do with the Lord tells me to do--I'll go to work, to class, obey all the rules which some say are petty, and rehabilitate from my daily fall, someday to be paroled by my Lord into true Freedom. Abide with me, Lord, and though I may fall daily, I pray that You take my heart.
I guess what I should start out with is to ask myself "What inspires me?"
My largest purpose in writing this blog is to "let virtue garnish [my] thoughts" more, and to dwell on and center myself with the eternal.
But what does that entail? Why is Isaiah sometimes really hard to read, and why do his writings sometimes flies out of the page? Why does some Church music speak to me, and some does not?
I think it's contextual. Here in mortality, we experience cycles of hope, cycles of activity, and cycles of faith. Sometimes I'm in the peak of a cycle, and I am amazed and edified by so much. Other times, I'm in a rut and things don't seem to perk like they did.
What mortality does is gives us the opportunity to choose to be like God even when He is absent--so those ruts are important. Will we give up and meander or will we continue (even haltingly) in the lifelong migration toward God?
I want to continue, so I'll aggressively seek inspiration where I can find it, whether I'm in a rut or a peak. Maybe the inspiration I find can help others, too, so I'll publish it. All we need to do is press forward, no matter how slow--we have eternity to get there.
