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I got to RS late today, and walked in to hear the instructor say that if we didn’t love our neighbor, we really didn’t love God. Apparently how I feel about my neighbor is a reflection on how I feel about God. So I sat there and listened to her explain the whole connection, when inside I wanted to raise my hand and remind here that every single person in the room is imperfect, and that we can absolutely love God and still be irritated or unkind to a neighbor or family member. Feelings are not absolutes, and we are a work in progress. Why oh why are they teaching the idea of perfection? I don’t enjoy going to church and being made to feel that I just don’t measure up. Most of us are hard enough on ourselves anyway, we don’t need some RS teacher to tell us how we feel about God, just because we get irritated at a neighbor, or worse yet, don’t offer a ride to that stranger on the side of the road. I would pick them up, but I prefer not to be dead, raped, or robbed.
You may wonder why I didn’t raise my hand and speak up? Because I tire of being Debbie Downer, or Rhonda Realist. The entire group of them (average age=75) just sit there and nod. Perhaps they are sleeping, but I see heads bobbing, I really do. Ray commented in another thread that we can only do our best, and that is good enough for God. When are they going to teach that in a class, instead of making us feel we just don’t quite hit the mark when we aren’t arriving at perfection.
Rant over for now, but I am still VERY angry at the shop owner who had my husband’s car towed right before Christmas by lying to the tow company and saying it had been there two days when we had been parked there for 15 minutes. Maybe I just don’t love God.
I have a pretty strong BS filter now at church. I know that in loving our neighbor, we are in fact loving God, but I join with you in acknowledging our weaknesses. It’s not an excuse (the fact that we have weaknesses) for mediocrity, or rationalization of hate, or dislike, but if the object and design of our whole existence is in fact happiness, then we need to cast off these guilt trips people throw at us. I believe strongly that, as a general rule, someone really can’t love God if they don’t love other people. I agree that someone can love God and not feel loving feelings about everyone.
I don’t see a disconnect between the two of those concepts. I also tend to cut others slack when they are trying to teach love – as opposed to a lesson on how we are better than others or justified in not loving others. I tend to see what you described as a black-and-white thinker framing a good principle in an extreme way – but, again, at least the focus is love.
I can empathise because I was released from my calling as SS teacher to be a RS counsellor. I didn’t like the clique of the “old bitty committee” and became inactive. Yet as a person that has a propensity to hold grudges, the Be attitudes in the NT have helped my “Oscar the Grouch” type personality forgive, let go, shed heavy burdens, love humanity and not lose ‘ my natural affection” though individual humans get on my d@men nerves. But I’m a person that needs s lot of forgiveness. I need abundance grace. My sins are many so I must love much. I have prayed for enemies. I didn’t like it. It was hard. I felt it was fake becuz I really felt insincere. It works. I actually loved my enemies for a while. I just can’t do the endure to the end part. But if that is not a weakness of yours, then I testify the bless those that curse you thing works.
Perhaps we are told to love God = to love your neighbor because God is within us. I like that idea, but it requires that this whole thing be looked at as a metaphor and it seems pretty clear that RS instructor was not teaching it that way. Old-Timer wrote:I tend to see what you described as a black-and-white thinker framing a good principle in an extreme way – but, again, at least the focus is love.
I see the Mormon concept of eternal families similarly. The idea that familial relationships and bonds matter beyond the grave is great. The idea of these same bonds being torn asunder if they do not have a special authorized ceremony IMHO is not.
Quote:I see the Mormon concept of eternal families similarly. The idea that familial relationships and bonds matter beyond the grave is great. The idea of these same bonds being torn asunder if they do not have a special authorized ceremony IMHO is not.
+1 on that one. And to extend the idea — not only must you have participated in a special authorized ceremony, you have to stick with the TR and activity or your family is no longer together for eternity!!!
At one point is this good religion, or just plain meddling?
I’m not really sure what you’re asking here. As a believer that the very core principles of the gospel are to love God and love your neighbor and as a believer that this was the main teaching of Jesus, I talk about this all the time. I recently told my SP all of my talks are really the same – no matter the topic, they all talk about loving our neighbors. I do recognize that in the recorded teachings of Jesus he never made the direct connection of “love God=love our neighbors” but it is quite easy to see that he may have implied it. John did make the connection, and modern prophets (especially Pres. Monson) have also made the connection. I wasn’t there in the meeting you refer to, so I’m not sure how you’re equating this with perfection. I wholeheartedly agree that none of us are perfect, nor can we be perfect (at least in this life). Like all other things, we all do our best or wish we were doing our best. From my point of view, loving my neighbor is showing my love for God – “when ye have done it unto one of the least of these….” Since I don’t actually try to be perfect (because I know it’s impossible and I believe in grace), I don’t necessarily equate my attempts at loving my neighbors as trying for perfection. Likewise, because I don’t live up to a standard of “do good to them that despitefully use you” does not mean that because I have a neighbor I don’t like (and I do have a literal neighbor I can’t stand) that I don’t like God – I really don’t think that connection is made in the scriptures or by the prophets.
Please understand that I am not attempting to argue with you or dispute your point of view, and I don’t usually do stuff like this. Here are some quotes from Pres. Monson about loving our neighbors:
Quote:We cannot truly love God if we do not love our fellow travelers on this mortal journey. Likewise, we cannot fully love our fellowmen if we do not love God, the Father of us all… We are all spirit children of our Heavenly Father and, as such, are brothers and sisters. As we keep this truth in mind, loving all of God’s children will become easier.
Actually, love is the very essence of the gospel, and Jesus Christ is our Exemplar. His life was a legacy of love. The sick He healed; the downtrodden He lifted; the sinner He saved. At the end the angry mob took His life. And yet there rings from Golgotha’s hill the words: “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” —a crowning expression in mortality of compassion and love.
There are many attributes which are manifestations of love, such as kindness, patience, selflessness, understanding, and forgiveness. In all our associations, these and other such attributes will help make evident the love in our hearts.
Usually our love will be shown in our day-to-day interactions one with another. All important will be our ability to recognize someone’s need and then to respond.
Quote:Often small acts of service are all that is required to lift and bless another: a question concerning a person’s family, quick words of encouragement, a sincere compliment, a small note of thanks, a brief telephone call.
Quote:Love is expressed in many recognizable ways: a smile, a wave, a kind comment, a compliment. Other expressions may be more subtle, such as showing interest in another’s activities, teaching a principle with kindness and patience, visiting one who is ill or homebound. These words and actions and many others can communicate love.
I don’t think we’re expected to pick up hitch hikers, nor do I think we’re expected to give to every street beggar. I think the way we’re supposed to love each other is much more subtle, perhaps better termed as a general kindness. And because God loves us all, grace makes up for our imperfections. I’m not sure how God feels about Satan; in LDS theology we’re led to believe that He loves Satan as his son. But God did cast Satan out of his presence, perhaps forever. If God can do that to His son and many other of His children, I think he can understand and forgive me for not liking the neighbor that causes me some grief on occasion.
SilentDawning wrote:Quote:I see the Mormon concept of eternal families similarly. The idea that familial relationships and bonds matter beyond the grave is great. The idea of these same bonds being torn asunder if they do not have a special authorized ceremony IMHO is not.
+1 on that one. And to extend the idea — not only must you have participated in a special authorized ceremony, you have to stick with the TR and activity or your family is no longer together for eternity!!!
At one point is this good religion, or just plain meddling?
I agree with this, too, and a few months back my SP told me that he thinks our familial relationships are the true tests of loving our neighbors. While I don’t believe God tests us, I do see his point – the easiest people to love are members of our own families – yet they are the ones we hurt the most and are at times the most difficult to deal with.
Recently I was thinking about how Bushman mentioned T. Givens framed our culture as a set of paradoxes, and I think it was Bonner Ritchie that said something like “the opposite of a great truth is another great truth.” I then wondered how these principles may apply to the two great commandments. Keeping in mind Jesus taught people that held an Old Testament mentality, I wonder if their concept of “love God with all your heart, soul, and mind” would come across to them as “give God 100% of your devotion, put nothing else next to God.” I think this would have been a very familiar idea to them. Would the follow-up have hit them in a sort of paradoxical way? Could there be another commandment “like unto it”? Are we really to love our neighbor in a way anything like the way we are to love God?! Is it honestly okay to love ourselves?? The old view often looks like “man is nothing, God is everything” and only the perfectly humble are accepted by God. Would it not be dangerous to to love yourself? You certainly can’t have pride in yourself!
I wonder if this was a new and revolutionary idea that Jesus introduced: “the second is LIKE unto it: LoVe your neighbor AS (well as) YOURSELF!”
I think this must have hit some people as contradictory to the command to give 100% of your devotion to God. …but I could be mistaken.
Orson, I agree completely. I took a college class entitled “Jesus and the Moral Life” from Harvey Cox (Protestant theologian and author of “The Secular City”) in which he talked about the concept of a “Zen slap” – the end of a parable when something comes out of nowhere and shocks the listener so strongly that it’s like being slapped in the face. In modern terms, we might say it “snaps your head back”.
I see Jesus’ entire life, as described in the Gospels, as one giant Zen slap – challenging so many assumptions of the time that heads had to be snapping back constantly. His framing of love in this way is one of the best examples of that approach.
There is wisdom in not raising your hand in church, many times, maybe even most of the time. Church can be a good place to practice restraint, and patience, and listening to others you completely disagree with, and still smile and seek to understand their point of view (while knowing full well you will never hold that same point of view).
I think much of church is to use hyperbole, symbolism, and mystical talk to make a point to stretch our minds. Take it with a grain of salt for what they are trying to convey.
I also think “your neighbor” is a term for others…like mankind. Not literally every neighbor, just like we don’t mean every man (or even gender based).
Real life is about dealing with others, and finding love in your heart. Even if others bug the crap out of us, we can still keep our hearts focused on the important things in life. And also be realistic, that my emotions tell me some people bug me, and some people really are dangerous and should be avoided.
Treat others as you would want to be treated. That is how you can love them, and God.
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