And I am Home - in the Home of the Beloved - a Convert so to speak

Writing this morning from the heart, less from the head.  We are home this Sunday morning, listening to our collection of favorite Mormon hymns, mostly piano, which have an emotional impact on me every time I hear them.  I find that I am missing that we are not in Church this morning.   In January 2014 it will be three years that I have had the privilege and honor to walk among the people who populate the LDS Church.  To say so is a recognition of humble acceptance on my part.  I did not believe I would or could 'convert' and did not see myself as such.  I have become what is termed in the LDS culture and religion a convert.

 In other words, I wasn't born into the Church, wasn't raised in the Church, don't have heritage or ancestors in this Church and what brings me to it is my husband's fact of both being born into the Church and having long-standing heritage among the peoples who brought us Mormonism and kept it a viable, living way of life. My connection to his heritage is my deep feeling for what his ancestor, Mary Jarvis, endured in making the treacherous Martin Handcart crossing to Salt Lake City.  She speaks to me in a voice that resonates so strongly within me.  I may be projecting my thoughts, experiences, wishes, hopes, desires onto her, yet it may not be descriptive of who she was, more that it could well be descriptive of who I am.  I embrace her faith, the faith she had within the depths of her soul as she drew upon that strength to survive the journey.  This does not speak as much to the nature of the religion as much as it speaks to individual's sense of faith and for that she has my respect.

For many years I have yearned for what my husband had in the fact that he knew his origins, his people, his heritage, his faith, the nature of his spirituality.  When he rejected the Church for the teachings, for the Correlation period of the Church that condensed individuality towards efforts of conformity, it was easy enough for me to help-mate him with his explorations that led to deconstructing what about the Church teachings didn't work well, were not healthy.  If one could step back and stay in their head, keeping discussion philosophical, abstract and conceptual, it was not difficult to disregard the Church teachings as having holes, sometimes very big black holes of despair.  But it is far more difficult to disregard the people of the community of the Church who give so much, work so hard towards self-improvement by the outline given them by their Church.  So many reach out in belief they are being helpful often not recognizing that their sense of helpful may in fact be hurtful.  And yet their hearts are in their efforts, the intent is not malicious.  I finally get to a place where I can appreciate, respect, understand misunderstandings for what they are - mis-understood.  Not understanding a meaning; erroneous interpretation; misconception; disagreement.   In other words, a very human way of being human.

It was August that I last wrote here.  Much has transpired in the few months since August.  We spent the month of September with his brother and wife in their home, in their community, in their Church, in Eastern Idaho, in what is known to be part of the Mormon corridor.  Our plan at the time was to take the next step towards what constitutes a Temple sealing of our marriage, and frankly speaking, at the end of that month, we were further removed from taking that step than when we began.  So there is no mistake, that is not as much by anything done or not done, said or not said in our stay with his brother and wife, nor the people of the community.  My caution antennae was again fully raised in my sense it is not necessary to take that step as it constitutes an immersion into beliefs I cannot yet accept or embrace.  They are both what is called Temple Workers.  He has held the calling of a Bishop and now teaches the Gospel Doctrine class.  I would say they have a situation that works for them in many ways and I respect that for them.  We came to the conclusion that because it works well for them is not indicative that it would work well for us.  We were married in a ceremony we loved, incorporating  Native American beliefs into what it means to join lives, sharing in joyous togetherness, communion.   It is difficult for us to see something more beautiful than the wedding ceremony we chose in uniting to become one with one another.

As my understanding or better said, my interpretation of how I understand a Temple sealing, I would receive my endowments (which I can receive apart from my husband at any time I so choose), and we could then choose to seal our marriage making covenants within the Church that are with respect to the LDS Church viewpoints or interpretations.  It does not make our marriage any more or less sacred, and what it portends is a deeper immersion into a way to behave with regard to the LDS Church.  We wish to continue to find ways to balance our love of the Native American way of seeing spirituality, our appreciation of other's way of seeing and practicing spirituality in a web of life kind of way, inclusive of much, exclusive of little.  Even so, I appreciate the need to belong to some tribe that knows me, can reach out to me, care about me, care about us even in our own jagged journey.

October gave us some challenges to our thinking with regard to best ways to be attentive to my mother in her aging years.  We have an ongoing decision to make as to where we will spend our later years, opportunities to relocate, yet mourning the loss of where we have been located for the past thirteen years.  We have grandchildren whom we wish to be close to who adore our company and we theirs.  We have issues ourselves with our bodies which choose to age in years despite our mental state of reacting in surprise that our bodies would age at all.  Mortality looms closer in our thoughts, requiring thinking that heralds responsibilities toward that end we have not yet fully embraced.

We return to our assigned Ward in November.  The young missionaries pay a visit, and I ask my husband to spend time with them as I am involved in a tasking for our home and not dressed to receive visitors.  He, having his own long ago experience of being a returned missionary has stories to share with the missionaries and imo some issues he has to work out for himself that don't require my attention.  Maybe a week later we get a visit from our home teacher and his teenage son and I find myself astonished in a most positive way at the things he says and shares.  It seems to me that I experience that sense of a heavy curtain being slowly drawn back to reveal a light that shines brightly out of these Mormon teachings - the ones we together have disparaged over the years even as we have walked tentatively toward that very light.

Somehow it seems to me he offers thoughts that fit what I need at this juncture in my, in our life decisions.  He says respectful and appreciative things about my efforts in going into this church, about my support of my husband's heritage, about my questions, my doubts, my observations, my thoughts, my conclusions up to this point.  He does not spend time backing me up, repeating well known to me phrases that defend the church.  At some point I ask if it is okay to have such a candid discussion with his teenage son there with him.  He assures me his son is fine with the discussion.  As the discussion comes to an end, I learn he is a physician and discern he likely is quite experienced with people's diverse ways of seeing a situation therefore knows how to respond to their needs as to where they are in the moment.  And that is exactly what I needed at that moment.  The empathy of someone who could get to my space and not push me into their space.  All the resistance I've felt for all these years fell away in those moments.   It did feel very much like I was getting a most personal message from the Beloved that was meant specifically for me.  I felt like I had found my home and I intend to stay there even if my dear husband does not.  Recognition that my husband's issues are his to work out, his to make the good fight and I have fought with him all these years, sometimes to my own detriment, putting my faith in him.  A recognition comes gradually that I can put my faith in him as my husband, being human, with his own strengths and frailties just as I have and that together we could put our faith in something beyond -- never mind how it is named, defined, conceptualized, explained -- it is a feeling that the head cannot experience and the heart knows.  I am there.  I call to our Beloved to cradle me, nurture me and bring me closer.   Amen.


---- After writing this post, sharing it with my loving husband, I had a long period of emotion swelling in me that brought me to tears over and over again - something that doesn't happen often.  I tried to verbalize what was the emotional and feeling inside me, and fell short of expressing those emotions in a logical way.  He listens with his heart, not with his head and we are blessed that has been the nature of our lives together as we listen to each other with our hearts, while our words try to find an emotional equivalent.   He shared with me a post he had written on his own blog earlier this summer when we were seriously committed to finishing the work we had begun with a sealing in the Temple.  He updated the post in November, adding some thoughts and additions.  I was so struck with his thoughts and wanted to share that link here.

This morning I heard the hymn  Abide With Me, familiar to Episcopals.  This hymn has also been adapted and is used in LDS services as well.  The particular verse that caught my attention is worded as follows:

                         'Oh Thou that changest not, abide with me'

 Hearing it this morning though, in that wordage, captured my attention, and likely because I was in such an emotional space.  Thinking of Thou who does not change, remains the same, forever and all time.  I believe that each of us as human creatures need a sense of Compass to guide us through our life travails, and we need that Compass to be steady, to be a definte place of measurement, to be a point of demarcation that we can count on each and every time we need to reference our personal Compass. I believe when we lose our sense of Compass is perhaps when we most feel lost.  In talking with my husband this morning, he mentioned that at this time in our lives, this time of uprooting, it is perhaps close by that we feel the need of our compass to be steady in guiding us.  In my world view, it is a great comfort to think of Thou as one who changest not and does abide with me.

Baptisms for the dead - an early Christian practice?

It remains on my mind that the Bishop said to me with a degree of emphasis on it being in the bible (he knows I have a strong leaning towards biblical text which I consider to be the gospel, having not yet fully embraced the BoM, D & C, PoGP as 'gospel') so much so, that I wanted to do my own follow up and see what I think the bible verse, chapter and context is trying to say.  Verse; 1 Corinthians 15:29  ²⁹Else what shall they do which are baptized for the dead, if the dead rise not at all? why are they then baptized for the dead? 


Given that I am not taken to use of one verse as a methodology to create an entire concept or doctrine based on that verse, I was curious about the entire chapter and what was being said, to whom, by whom, along with some sense of the era or period of time in which it was being said as well as some of the customs/practices of that time.  It is a given that I cannot possible know what were customs/practices of an era of antiquity and must rely on scholarly studies, which of themselves are seldom in agreement.  More sorting, more puzzle pieces and I've long since abandoned an idea that with enough puzzle pieces I would be able to piece together an entire picture, rather a composite of fragments of customs/cultures and belief sets that have been shared, borrowed, confiscated, supplanting and/or augmenting the existing cultural belief sets.

It is my belief that it is impossible to gather enough information or ideas or concepts to glue together an overarching belief set thus having at last driven down to the 'truth' as a singular foundational underlaying of the many years of layers upon layers.  I think my mental approach wants to be a bit like an archaeological dig, getting down beneath the surface to find out what was buried over the eons.  And even then knowing whatever is found will still be subject to interpretation based on the finder's perspectives given his/her period in history. 


excerpt at ORB    (more closely matches my understanding of the Christian narrative, and I appreciated  as well as recommend reading the entire article)

Early Christian doctrines developed and were shaped over time; they were neither fixed nor stable. Once a doctrine was established it often necessitated a subsequent doctrine to define more precisely what was meant and to clarify the subtle nuances. Lived experience and understanding was the basis for the emergence of forming and re-forming doctrine. In other words, the need to develop doctrine about Jesus Christ emerged from the need to sort out what was truly Christian experience and life. In the words of the early church historian, Joseph Kelly:

The story of the Church begins at Pentecost with a frightened group of disciples wondering what will happen to them; it progresses through an almost frenetic attempt to win over the outside world before the Second Coming; it focuses on an epic struggle with the most powerful empire of the ancient world; it reaches its high point with the conversion of that empire to the new faith; it closes with the gradual decline of a great civilization and the emergence of a new world. It has a large canvas and broad brush strokes. While we must pay meticulous attention to the particulars, we must never forget the generalŠ(Kelly, "Why Study Early Church History?" 5)

I read the entire chapter of Corinthians for context, and continued to be nagged by the sense that this one particular verse pointed to something I had not yet explored for myself.  Further that it is not of substantive value to be mentioned in the Protestant narratives to which I had been exposed, nor the Episcopal narrative, meaning to me that it has been discounted as not relevant to the Protestant or Episcopal narratives.  If I bypass Protestant and Episcopal narratives, what do the religious studies have to say about this verse, being that it does point to some kind of custom being practiced in that time.  What practice, why, and from where does that practice stem? 

Chasing it down, I gain some knowledge of what is believed among some scholars to be the custom pointed to in the verse (along with a lot of sifting through the usual and typical finger pointing to the Mormon belief as heretical, false, misguided, etc.).  That is not what I'm after, I'm after some concrete sense of what custom, what practice, for what reason, why is Paul pointing it out at all unless it was being practiced and he knew of it.  And if so, is he finding a commonality he can point to in preaching the Christ resurrection or is he admonishing against something suggesting a replacement of belief sets, what he is preaching instead of the practice of what they are doing?   

It would be presumptuous for me to write that I found answers to what I was looking for as if that is the explanation.  Rather I would state that I did find thoughts about what I was looking for that cause me to pause a bit and let that information percolate a while.  Nonetheless, it becomes evident to me that somewhere in the Mormon history, the meanings attached to this verse, whether from Gnostic or otherwise belief sets, this verse brought the Mormon practice of baptisms for the dead alive as a ritual practice imbued with sacred meanings for those who teach it as well as those who believe it as well as those who practice it.  Iconography has sprung up with it to further imbue sacred meaning to the practice.  It is therefore real enough as it is practiced in the LDS church among the membership.

 I'm not having a problem with approaching it from that perspective.  I'm still stuck though on the a,b,c  element that ties tithing to temple, therefore ties tithing to the Mormon sacred ritual practice of performing baptisms for the dead, as it is performed only in the temple, not in the chapels and access to the temple requires a temple recommend which requires approval from a bishop which means responding with an honest degree of integrity to the questions posited by the bishop in which the question of 'do you pay a full tithing' requires an answer of yes or no.  The matter of defining what is a full tithing, as in one tenth of your personal increase has considerable wiggle room, and were we agreeable to paying some part of a tithing, could easily respond to the question with a yes with a personal degree of honest integrity.  The church has not been unclear in restating repetitiously it's requirements of members to pay tithing at a rate of ten percent or 1/10th of their income/increase.

It seems that I do not yet have a testimony of tithing, which is in fact prohibiting and impeding gaining a testimony of the temple, a testimony of baptism for the dead, a testimony of sealing, and as yet unknown to me other testimonies that involve temple, ie, personal endowments, ordinances and in truth because it is absent in my experience, I really don't yet know what else will be kept from me for the lack of temple experience.

It's an odd thing, because I have a belief in sharing, compassion, generosity of spirit, empathy for humankind, community, communion, and belonging.  While I recognize there is usually some sort of price to be paid for admittance to the tribe, be it initiation rituals, practices, customs as shared among the tribe, I have not yet encountered a must pay cash contribution situation.  Appreciating that it does take funding for most organizations, religious or otherwise, to function well, I'm not opposed to contributing for the sake of well being of the organizations ability to function.  I am not sold on a specific contribution amount being set as the price of admittance though - that concept troubles me.  

What's my contribution to my Ward community?

It's never been easy to be the new person entering into a community, be that school, work, church, or affiliations within the community where a person lives.   Having been raised a child in a military family, moving from military base to military base, some of the time overseas, I like to believe I developed some of those characteristics of what are known to  'third culture kids', children raised in cultures, communities, nations different from their birth country.  I appreciate that I can enjoy a new community, looking at their belief sets, customs and cultures with a fresh viewpoint.  Obviously different, and sometimes even strange, yet for the most part there seems to be some thread of logic, tradition to the customs of their culture.   Sometimes though, there are customs or practices within a culture that are just unfathomable and seem to have very little in the way of logic to them, so that all one can conclude is that it is a custom of tradition held and handed down through the generations.  Who knows where it started or even why it started, nonetheless, it is a treasured tradition within the culture.

I find myself then the 'new kid' in this faith tradition.  And I have been communing with these people for what seems to me a short while, but long enough that some have formed thoughts or a sense of who I am or maybe better said who I am to them.  I think in the anxiety of being a new kid and trying to fit in while keeping my own identity, integrity and sense of ideology, I forget it is a two way street and as much as they are influencing me, I am influencing them.  So aside from the 'callings' that define what I will 'do' in this church, and my efforts and performing well in these callings, it surprises me when someone comments on how I may have had an influence on them.  So it was last Sunday when one of the sisters gave a talk that I thoroughly enjoyed exactly because it was somewhat unconventional.  I mentioned that to her after the service, and it surprised me when she said to me, thank you, and yes, I had Sister Ruger in mind this morning knowing I would be giving a talk at church.  Now honestly, I don't know if it was a compliment or otherwise, but I do know that it caused me to realize that this communion is not one way, lest it wouldn't be 'communion'.  Another sister in an earlier Sunday had referenced something to effect of gotta love that Sister Ruger in a way connoting I did bring something to the church community.

Given that I am taking this all so very seriously, with enormous amounts of research, reading, comparison, discussions and conversations with my husband and a few others, it is nice to come up for air from time to time and recognize that it really is about sharing with others in communion and community and while my mind may be seriously engaged, that is not the presentation that my personage makes in my 'new' community.  While I may see myself as the awkward new kid busily learning everything there is that I can learn, some others are seeing me in an affectionate light, as the new kid, yes, but not necessarily the awkward new kid.  It's a nice change of pace.

Visiting Teacher - that's me

Visiting Teacher - what does it mean?  I've been assigned my list of Sisters and their families to visit, along with a companion Sister.  Now what?   Connecting with companion sister in an effort to coordinate schedules with her and how to go about setting up the visits.  She agrees to phone the sisters and set up appointments, we agree to a date and so it's on ... my first experience (in this context anyway) with visiting teaching LDS style.

I'm inserting a video here that I viewed today .. After  .. my day long experience earlier this week with my companion sister in visiting teaching sister families.  As I watched the video, I enjoyed laughing at the different ways to short cut in visiting teaching experiences and then somewhere about 3/4 into the video a shift in direction happened and what had been amusing examples became something else, and my laughter shifted to tearing up and crying.  My husband, sitting across from me on his laptop, engaged in his own online endeavors, looked up in surprise to ask me what was wrong, and I found it impossible to explain that while nothing is wrong, I also cannot explain why I am crying.  He was touched and moved that I was touched and moved.  Some things just really don't have words in the moment that explain or describe the emotion/feeling level.  If the video moves you in similar direction, maybe you can add a comment as to how you experienced the video.  My post will resume after the inserted video.

Resuming my post.  I receive surprise phone call at end of the month from one of the sisters, and I recognize her name.  She announces she along with her companion are to be my visiting teachers.  I'm taken off guard, didn't expect the reverse, with sisters visiting me in my home.  It's a bit of a drive from town to our outlying community, and I go into immediate concern for the cost and time factor for the sister.  I know, I know - - that's not my piece to be concerned about, even so, I am startled by how quickly I shift gears to having concerns about her.  Explaining that this month has been all about family visiting us and us visiting them, we aren't going to be available this day nor likely till next month.

 I'm also a bit taken aback as I have one of those quirky things about people visiting my home which I consider my sanctuary and safe place from the rest of the world.  Okay, I think to myself, I can manage this - once a month, the sisters will call in advance, it will be fine.  After all, we have had the Home Teachers, the Missionaries, Relief Society President, and drop by visit from member couple who live in the community -- much more visitation than I'm use to having in my home.  Typically our social connections (unless immediate family) are conducted outside of our home, making this a bit of a different approach to me to have people in our home.  I'll adapt.  Interesting.  So, once a month visits from 'my' visiting teachers might actually be kind of fun.

Meeting up with my visiting teacher companion, she has scheduled our visits with our families to take place most of one day.   We meet up and get started.   She gives me a bit of overview of each family, and I'm pleased she has phoned them to arrange the scheduling as they will know her whereas it is  unlikely they would know me.  It is a good easing into it arrangement for all parties.

First visit, an elderly couple, her Mr. having health difficulties and they have an in home care worker who gives Mrs. some respite.  She uses that time to get done her personal things that are not about caring for another.  Good arrangement for all, I think to myself.  She is very focused while still being quite gracious about getting our visit completed so she can move on with  the other things she has scheduled for this respite time.  I recognize from having seen them at church on Sunday meetings that she is also supportive to her daughter and daughter's first born baby.  

Second visit, a blended family.  Mr. has health difficulties to the point of being disabled, therefore Mrs. is the primary income-producer in this family.  Both have children from previous marriages as well as their children together.  He has had a couple of earlier marriages and is heavily invested in characteristics leading to his disabilities.  Mrs. seems okay with the nature of their relationship, has substantive enough earnings, does lean on church resources.  

Third visit, grandparents caring for one of their children's children.  Mr. and Mrs. long term marriage, hardy couple, retired from their respective employments, have seen a lot of living and life situations, seem strongly independent.  As they are advanced enough in years, it is astonishing to me that they have taken on 5 children this late in their own lives.   

Fourth visit which did not happen that day will involve a long time married couple in the midst of divorce. 

Fifth visit happened accidentally with a social visit on Sunday with elderly couple members who live in our outlying community.  Another couple, long time friends of theirs and new grandparents, had stopped by and we all shared a pleasant visit.  Recognized Mr. as Counselor to Bishop and when he is sitting in the front, looks quite forbidding to me.  Learned from his wife that he is actually very shy and the talk he gave a few Sundays ago was the first talk ever that he has given.  That completely changes the picture for me, and in the future as I see him sitting in the front by the Bishop, I will not register his composure as forbidding, rather a degree of discomfort.   As it turns out Mrs. is one of the families I've to home visit, she received phone call while we were there from my companion sister to set up appointment, inquires of me if I have been called to be visiting teacher; yes, I reply; and she tells me to consider this visit as a home visit, says does not need anything.   

My sense of the visiting teaching experience is strongly colored by my former career as social worker, and making home visits are not foreign to me.  I sense a need to find a proper blend and balance with my honed skill set nudging me in a pattern familiar to me to assess family situations in line with church resources.  In my mind there might be a small challenge for me in recognizing and appreciating this is a membership community not as comfortable with community or government resources, preferring instead resources as outlined by the church.  

Snippets

Snippets of thoughts since last I posted ten days ago.  The roaring roller coaster of emotions continues to dwell in me yearning for a controlled manner of expression and yet the controls have seemingly been lifted.  A state of being. I hope it will find a balance, and if not, then I hope I will find a balance.   It is my belief, or perhaps better said, I know this church is in a growth curve of it's own, in it's own right, even as I adapt to my personal growth curve in having become better acquainted with this church.   I feel the undercurrent strongly.  I don't have experiential 'before' to compare it with, so have to trust the historical experience of others as indicative of the evolution that I can palpably feel is happening inside this church structure.   

Salvation not condemnation.  Our Bishop said this simple little phrase a couple Sundays ago, in the context of an announcement and not buried in a talk.  I wrote the phrase down.  I like it.  And I believe he meant it to mean something for each of us, as in pointing a direction. 
  
A mature couple from our region spoke this Sunday of their experience of senior missionary work in England.  I enjoyed listening to both of them speak and with great humility about their time spent in helping with a youth camp in England.  They are planning another mission and will be leaving again soon.  They live in one of our coastal small communities. Part of their talk was to encourage some of us in our retired years to step up to this opportunity of senior missionary work. 


 I was particularly taken by how she, as a mother, included in her presentation letters she had solicited from her adult children in how they managed in their parents' absence.   They have ten children, I believe she said, and she probably read about six of the brief letters. She talked about the events in their lives she had missed while they were away in England.  As I listened, I felt my own stomach tightening knowing that should my children be having such events in their lives, my immediate reaction would be to get back home to be with them.  As if my being there with them would somehow ameliorate the circumstance they were having to face.  She spoke of one adult child who had cancer, another adult child who lost their business, another adult child who lost business and employment and decided to enlist  in the Army (my immediate thoughts of Afghanistan deployment), another adult child who was married, and another adult child who had birthed a new baby.  


Afterwards I spoke with them and asked her how she was able to remain overseas with these events happening in her children's lives. The answer she gave me resonated with me in a useful way as I deal with my own feelings regarding the geographical distance with my own adult children as they cope with events in their lives.  She said, 'you know how as a mother you don't tell your children everything about how you are feeling because you don't want to burden them; well it's true in reverse too.  The children didn't tell me everything while I was gone, and I learned of some of these events after we returned.'   


 It was a good reminder for me.  I know my children don't tell me even a percentage of what is going on with them as events occur in their lives, until after they have dealt with it in their own way.   They tell me after the fact and more to let me know that they did deal with it and did so in a responsible manner.  As my own instincts shout at me that I would have wanted to drop everything and rush to their side, that is not quite what they are wanting from me.  They want to reassure me that they handled and managed their challlenges, and explain how they managed it.  And even though they have been adults managing their lives for some time now, and my head knows this absolutely, my heart feelings do not match up with my head thoughts on the matter. 


Enough snippets for now.  We received our copies of our baptism papers, which, and I must smile when I share this, I have put away in the big, old fashioned King James leather bound, Family Bible, replete with family history, color picture sections with copies of some of the old painting masters biblical interpretations.  It's an tradition from yesteryear, I know, but it brings me comfort.  Many families had one of those big ol' Family Bibles, where record keeping was done.  I believe my mother still has hers.  

This morning I listened to an exceptional podcast, or at least I found it to be exceptional.  The tone was respectful and honored the fact of the courage of some of the men who have made an impact on the direction of the church.  It was not a hail to the chiefs kind of talk, rather the speaker, author Greg Prince who gave the presentation spoke of these men as people of courage while reminding us they were not sainted, rather men of their era and historical times, engaged in trying to lead a church in directions it may not have wished to be led, the men being a bit quietly resolute and therefore a bit extraordinary in being willing to hold the line in leading in a difficult direction.    
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Link and  a copy/paste of the  promo of the podcast. 

As a part of the March 2011 Mormon Stories Conference in New York City, author Greg Prince  spoke on the topic of 21st Century Lessons from Three 20th Century Men: David O. McKay, Leonard Arrington and Paul H. Dunn. 

Greg Prince is the author of David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism.  He is currently working on biographies of both LDS Church Historian Leonard Arrington and deceased LDS General Authority Paul H. Dunn.

And I'm inclined to get down the words I heard her husband say at the end of his part of the presentation.  Words I am more familiar with and can say with comfort; 'I know the gospel is true, I know Jesus is the Christ, I know He is our Redeemer and Savior'.   

 Also because the talks today in the last meetings had a focus on choice, and free agency, I could strongly feel the comfort of words I liked saying in our Episcopal days.  It gave me comfort in the acknowledgement that it is impossible not to have made mistakes throughout the week, that those omissions could be forgiven, and that I might do better in the week to come. 

Most merciful God, we confess that we have sinned against you in thought, word, and deed, by what we have done, and by what we have left undone. We have not loved you with our whole heart; we have not loved our neighbors as ourselves. We are truly sorry and we humbly repent. For the sake of your Son Jesus Christ, have mercy on us and forgive us; that we may delight in your will, and walk in your ways, to the glory of your Name. Amen.

Does Compassion Mean What I Think It Does?

Compassion.  I think I know what it means to me, and I know my penchant for projecting onto others what I think it must also mean to them.  And more often than not, I come to learn what I have projected is not necessarily at all something means to another.   So difficult, finding the commonality of our languages, even when we speak the same language.  I would have surely thought compassion would have a somewhat universal meaning and would be a safe conversational word to express humane, spiritual and faith based concepts. 


Apparently not so much in the faith based world.   Reading a post on Compassion at Better Than Believing blog this morning was an eye opener for me.   Translated from the scriptures and texts into the English may leave behind some of the intended meanings in the original writings.   Calls into question then, what it means to follow the popular belief of the Jesus teaching of compassion. 

The differing meanings of the words compassion as cited in the post:

racham as compassion; Hebrew racham, which may have evolved from a root associated with cuddling a baby or little child, is frequently rendered compassion but has a variety of other meanings.

chamal, which originally may have meant commiserate; another Hebrew word. The difference between chamal and racham is that chamalnever seems to be connected with emotions but always suggests a decision about how to treat people

Two other Hebrew words are occasionally translated compassion: chen, which usually appears in English as grace or favor, and chesed, which most often is translated steadfast love or mercy.

The word that usually appears as compassion in the gospels must always be accompanied by a verb because the word in Greek, splagchnizomai, is a verb. It is based on splagchnon which means intestines, bowels, guts, or viscera. When a people today talk about having a visceral reaction to someone, like the authors and editors of the gospels they are acknowledging that intense emotions are experienced in the digestive tract.  A crude but accurate translation of splagchnizomai would be torn up in the gut. In the gospels splagchnizomai usually describes a reaction of Jesus to the suffering or distress of other people.  Occasionally the translators use the word pity instead of compassion.

His post then poses question about meaning of compassion as is typically understood from the biblical texts. He suggests that making a virtue of compassion as if it is understood in the same way by all may not create a bit of a problem in understanding the meaning and intent of the teachings. If as a visceral feeling, gut reaction, one feels it or one doesn't. He then cites the well practiced masking people must do with their personal feelings in the helping professions in order to provide care (ie, doctors, nurses, EMT, etc) effectively.


I well know the experience of needing to turn off personal feeling less my compassion be exhausted before a nine hour work shift is completed. It provides a safety valve that permits me to do my job, helping large numbers of others, without depleting my personal resources. I don't think my sense of compassion fully dissipates, but it is necessary for it to recede to the background in order to more effectively perform the helping services of my profession.


His post goes on to suggest that followers of Jesus must also learn to train themselves with regard to their personal sense of compassion so that they might provide a loving and merciful response within the context of how they experience their sense of compassion.


I intend to contemplate this for a while, incorporate it into my understanding of compassion, and revisit what I think the scriptures might be suggesting Jesus meant in use of the word compassion. It sounds like there are differing meanings applicable to different situations.