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I came across this today in my files. I remember reading it for the first time when I was desperately in need of the ideas it offers – I found it a powerful stimulus to a new spirituality. Can we add it to our Library section? I don’t remember where I found it (probably a link from NOM) or if there was ever proper credit given:
LOVING THE SAINTS (by an unnamed bishop)
ONE of the dangers for those who are at any but the highest levels of spiritual awareness is that they tend to expect everyone to conform to their standards. Those at the highest levels have the charity and magnanimity to accept people where they are and to help them to grow spiritually. The following Zen story about fixed and open rules of morality illustrates the danger of judging others by our standards of morality.
Two monks named Tanzan and Ekido were once traveling together down a muddy road. A heavy rain was falling. Coming around a bend, they met a lovely young woman in a silk kimono and sash who was unable to cross the road. “Come on,” said Tanzan at once. Lifting her in his arms, he carried her over the mud and set her down on the other side. He and his companion set off down the road again. Ekido did not speak to his companion again until that night when they reached their lodging temple. Then he could no longer contain himself. “We monks do not go near females,” he told Tanzan, “especially young and lovely ones. It’s dangerous. Why did you do that?” After a thoughtful pause Tanzan calmly replied “I left the girl there by the side of the road. Are you still carrying her?”
Recognizing that people don’t fall neatly into set categories should make us more tolerant. We are all on a continuum in our eternal progression, and God is present at every level. In reality, none of us ever acts consistently with moral maturity. With our families, in our business dealings, or even while stuck in traffic, we may at times regress all the way back to the lowest levels. On the other hand, we may also occasionally stretch ourselves to reach high levels. Thus, we need to be open to what we can learn from others whose spiritual development may be as uneven as our own. As Emerson said, “I have never met another person who was not my superior in some particular.”
No one of us is ever in a position to completely know the heart of another. This truth has become increasingly evident to me as I have counseled with hundreds of Church members over the past five years. I have come to recognize that there is an entire category of people who have been physically, psychologically, and sexually abused and who because of this often have an impaired sense of moral reasoning or an impaired ability to live certain commandments. Others, through trauma, tragedy, or even rigid upbringing, may be unable to develop into morally responsible adults.
One story will illustrate my point. Two years ago an attractive woman moved into our ward. She dressed and carried herself in a provocative manner. She attracted men quickly and was openly flirtatious, even with me. Through a series of interviews her troubled history unfolded. I discovered that she had been born out of wedlock, abandoned by her mother at an early age, sexually abused by a grandfather and uncle while still a toddler (the discovery of this came only after peeling away layers of repressed memories in therapy as an adult). She was taken into several foster homes in which sexual abuse continued. She was promiscuous in her teens. She was taken in by an LDS family where the father made sexual advances toward her. Yet when she was twenty-one, she served a successful mission. One would have thought that her life had changed completely. Following her mission she became engaged to a fellow missionary with whom she later became intimate. Her self-esteem crumbled and the engagement was broken. Six months later she was working as a prostitute in Los Angeles.
This woman was given a new beginning when she began to work with a psychotherapist. It was clear that it would be very difficult to overcome the burden of such an abusive and troubled past. Through long hours of counseling with me and with her therapist, loving attention from home and visiting teachers, financial assistance, and various other forms of fellowship, we supported her efforts to break the pattern of her desperate and self-destructive need for male attention. After some time, she made a carefully planned move to be near her mother in another state. Unfortunately, I learned recently that she was back in Los Angeles working as an escort for rich businessmen.
While she was in our ward, this sister was the subject of criticism by other ward members who only saw the surface of her behavior. Being aware of her history, I knew it was completely unjust to judge this woman by normal standards of morality, and yet I couldn’t betray her confidence by telling others why she should be treated with greater patience and charity.
Every Sunday as I look out over the congregation during sacrament meeting, I am aware of the pain, the sorrow, the suffering behind the faces I see. While some members of my congregation would be comfortable citizens of the City of Enoch, others are only steps away from suicide or serious transgression. While some have what seems to be unlimited freedom in determining their destinies, others have been deprived of their agency or have squandered it to such an extent that significant choice seems impossible.
For the first six months I was a bishop, I worried a great deal about inconsistency in dealing with transgression. Then I realized that it was impossible to be both consistent and charitable and decided to try to be consistently charitable-to treat each individual not according to strict policies but with understanding and love for his or her unique situation.
In his humorous sketch, “Captain Stormfield’s Visit to Heaven,” Mark Twain satirizes those who think that they are the elect of God and will be given a special place in heaven. When they arrive there they are surprised to find that the order of things is not what they expected. In the heavenly procession, Adam must walk behind Shakespeare, but both “have to walk behind a common tailor from Tennessee; . . . and behind a horse-doctor named Sakka, from Afghanistan; . . . next come Ezekiel, and Mahomet, Zoroaster, and a knife-grinder from ancient Egypt.” When Captain Stormfield asks, “But why did they throw off on Shakespeare, that way, and put him away down there below those shoe makers and horse-doctors and knife-grinders-a lot of people nobody ever heard of?” his companion responds, “That is the heavenly justice of it-they warn’t rewarded according to their just deserts, on earth, but here they get their rightful rank.”
A similar point is made by Flannery O’Connor in her short story, “Revelation.” The main character of the story, Ruby Turpin, sees herself as superior to almost everyone, but especially blacks and “poor white trash.” She continually thanks God for not making her like them: “Her heart rose. He had not made her a nigger or white-trash or ugly! He had made her herself and given her a little of everything. Jesus, thank you! she said. Thank you thank you thank you!” After being literally struck between the eyes with the truth of her own character and later shouting at God, “Who do you think you are?” Ruby Turpin is shown a vision of heaven, a place where she had always seen herself as being elevated above those on whom she has looked down:
A visionary light settled in her eyes. She saw the streak [of light] as a vast swinging bridge extending upward from the earth through a field of living fire. Upon it a vast horde of souls were rumbling toward heaven. There were whole companies of white-trash, clean for the first time in their lives, and bands of black people in white robes, and battalions of freaks and lunatics shouting and clapping and leaping like frogs. And bringing up the end of the procession was a tribe of people whom she recognized at once as those who, like herself and Claud [her husband] had always had a little of everything and the God-given wit to use it right.
The ultimate revelation to Mrs. Turpin is not that she is placed behind those to whom she felt superior on earth, but that in spite of her pride, her hypocrisy, and her confused values, Christ will redeem her, too. In her vision she sees that in the redemptive process the “virtues” of people like her were burned away. The last sound she hears are “the voices of the souls climbing upward into the starry fields and shouting hallelujah.”
For most of us, saintly behavior is not a steady state, but something we rise to on occasion. Our behavior is inconsistent as we fluctuate among the various levels of moral conduct. At one moment we may respond with Christ-like compassion to a stranger in need and the next be cruel to a spouse or child. We may be generous in paying tithes and offerings and yet turn away a hungry beggar. The fact that our spirituality is neither constant nor ever increasing in its intensity should leave us humble in regard to our own ability to abide by ideal standards, and it should make us tolerant of others who fail to meet our expectations.
There is a tendency in the Church to judge one another for failure to understand the gospel as we understand it or to abide by the commandments as we do. In every ward there are those who speak disparagingly of others, who question the spiritual devotion and commitment of their brothers and sisters. Sometimes intolerance divides a ward along generational, ideological, or political lines.
I confess that at times I tend to get caught up in such polarization, to see myself on the side of truth, wisdom, and good taste, and to be critical of those whose ideas, opinions, and tastes differ from my own. I can be especially intolerant of those who attack my ideas or lifestyle. What helps me is to remember how accepting, forgiving, and long-suffering the Lord is with me. He doesn’t reject me because of my ignorance or sinfulness, or condemn me for my limitations and short-comings. Instead, he stands ready always to forgive me, to urge me to higher standards of ethical and moral behavior, and to be patient with me as I struggle to reach them. We should try to accept others as God accepts us-for whatever we are, wherever we are. His grace on our behalf is always beyond our deserving. As Paul says to the Romans, “God’s act of grace is out of all proportion to Adam’s wrongdoing. . . . [W]here sin was multiplied [through us], grace immeasurably exceeded it . . .” (Romans 5:15, 20, Revised English Bibe,10 hereafter cited as REB).
It is in Romans where Paul gives his strongest argument about the importance of the Saints having tolerance and charity for one another. To those who may make judgments about others in regard to living the Word of Wisdom, he says, “Accept anyone who is weak in faith without debate about his misgivings. For instance, one person may have faith strong enough to eat all kinds of food, while another who is weaker eats only vegetables. Those who eat meat must not look down on those who do not, and those who do not eat meat must not pass judgment on those who do; for God has accepted them” (Romans 14:1-3 REB).
Disputations about the Sabbath day are seen in the same light: “Again, some make a distinction between this day and that; others regard all days alike. Everyone must act on his own convictions. Those who honor the day honor the Lord, and those who eat meat also honor the Lord, since when they eat they give thanks to God; and those who abstain have the Lord in mind when abstaining, since they too give thanks to God. For none of us lives, and equally none of us dies, for himself alone. . . . Let us therefore cease judging one another. . . . Let us, then, pursue the things that make for peace and build up the common life.” (Romans 14:5-7, 13, 19 REB.) Building that common life is our common stewardship, and when we take it seriously, we progress as individuals and as a Church.
SPIRITUAL EVOLUTION
M. SCOTT PECK defines spiritual growth as the evolution of consciousness. He describes the movement from undeveloped spirituality to spiritual competence as spiritual evolution. He also says that this evolution is anti-entropic (not random, subject to order). Further, Peck states that the force that drives this spiritual evolution is love:
It is through love that we elevate ourselves. And it is through our love of others that we assist others to elevate themselves. Love, the extension of the self, is the very act of evolution. It is evolution in progress. The evolutionary force, present in all life, manifests itself in mankind as human love. Among humanity love is the miraculous force that defies the natural law of entropy.
Peck states that love comes from grace. He says, “To explain the miracle of grace . . . we hypothesize the existence of a God who wants us to grow, a God who loves us.” Mormons who have read The Road Less Traveled undoubtedly have been astonished to discover what Peck has to say about the ultimate end of spiritual evolution. He is the only other believer I know who seems to understand that the purpose of our mortal existence is to evolve toward godhood. He says,
Why does God want us to grow? What are we growing toward? What is the end point? The goal of evolution? What is it that God wants of us? All of us who postulate a loving God eventually come to a single terrifying idea: God wants us to become Himself or Herself or Itself. We are growing toward Godhood. God is the goal of evolution. It is God who is the source of the evolutionary process and God who is the destination.
CONCLUSION
I BELIEVE that the Church is evolving through the stages of moral development because we as its constituent parts are so evolving. It is a loving God’s divine design that his people and his Church arrive at a point where they and it will be renewed with paradisiacal glory.
I am convinced that the purpose of the Church is to make it possible for us to have three central experiences, all of which are designed by loving heavenly parents to help us move to higher planes of spiritual evolution.
The primary purpose of the Church is to make it possible for us to experience the love of God. Ideally, all of the Church’s programs and activities should reflect this purpose. Perhaps locked in our deepest pre-existent memories is a remembrance of what it felt like to be held in the loving embrace of our Father and Mother in Heaven. I am convinced that that was the purest experience we have ever felt, an experience so profound and so joyful that when we are in touch with it, we are motivated to spend our entire lives trying to get back into their presence so that we might feel that love, both physically and spiritually, for eternity.
The next purpose of the Church is to help us love ourselves. This is not merely a wish on the Lord’s part, but one of his great commandments. He has revealed the gospel and the design of his Church and kingdom so that we will truly know that we are unique, eternal creatures begotten out of love and of inestimable worth to those who begot us and to their Son who gave his life that we might return to their presence.
Being able to love ourselves makes it possible for us to love others and to receive their love, which is the third central purpose of the Church. Notice how much of the gospel is focused on the commandment that we love one another. It is very difficult for people to feel the love of God if they have not first experienced the love of other human beings. Those who doubt the love of God generally are those who doubt the love of their parents and others, who on some deep level are convinced that they are unlovable. In reality, we can’t accept the Atonement until we are able to love those who, like ourselves, are undeserving of Christ’s love. It is through loving others that we participate with God in the redemption of his children, and it is in being loved by others that we receive the power to seek redemption. For there can be no redemption without love, …not just God’s love, but the love we give to and receive from others.
When as individuals or as a church we fail to enable these central purposes, as sometimes happens, it frustrates the work of God. We are called of God to help make the Church fulfill its central mission of making love possible in all its heavenly and earthly manifestations.
I used to think that in order to get to the celestial kingdom I had to keep all of the commandments. I now believe that I need to live as perfectly as possible one commandment, …the commandment to love. (Upon the two great commandments hang all the law…) Further, I believe that those who enter that kingdom will do so because, having learned to love purely, they alone will be comfortable in the presence of the pure love of God. Others who have loved less completely and less purely will seek lower kingdoms.
I believe that the celestial kingdom is reserved for those who have learned to love themselves, others, and God; the terrestrial kingdom for those who have learned to love themselves and others; and the telestial kingdom for those who chose to love only themselves. The love of the first will be as bright and as warm as the sun, while the love of the second and third will be comparable, respectively, to the light and warmth of the moon and stars. Outer darkness is reserved for those who, in spite of all the opportunities given them in mortality, are unable to give or receive love of any kind. As Father Zosima says in The Brothers Karamazov, “Fathers and teachers, I ponder `What is hell?’ I maintain that it is the suffering of being unable to love.” Thus outer darkness is merely the reflection of inner darkness, the heart of darkness in which there is no love and therefore no light.
As we learn to love we move through the stages of our divine lives, from the beginning where our love is focused on ourselves, to loving those who love us, to loving God. And when we learn to love God, our capacity to love is extended to our enemies, to the unlovely, to those whom we do not know but for whom we feel compassion because they belong to the human family, to the world itself and all its creatures and living things, and ultimately to the vastness of space with all of its stars and galaxies and other worlds-because all are part of the handiwork and the habitation of those who begot us in love, who now nurture us in love, and who will welcome us home and crown us as exalted beings through that same love. Though I imagine that in that exultant moment, our only desire will be to bestow our crown onto some other that is more deserving. The ultimate acceptance of the honor in the end will be only to submit to the will of those we love. Our desire will be to serve all, and take the glory of none. That desire being the prerequisite to the kingdom.
Thanks for posting that. I think we also ought to consider posting Pres. Uchtdorf’s talk that included the line about not judging those who sin differently than we do.
Yes I think his recent talk is an obvious addition. :thumbup: I’ve been thinking for a while it’s time to re-do the support library on the website. There are a ton more podcasts, talks and articles out there. It needs to be reorganized too.
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