This is Only a Test

Many years ago when my children were young I presented a challenge for them.  I told them I would give $10 to any one of them who first memorized and then sang to me the words to a song I had selected from our church hymnbook.  It was a children’s song that went as follows: 

 

In our lovely Deseret [early name for the Utah territory] where the Saints of God have met there’s a multitude of children all around.  They are generous and brave; they have precious souls to save; they must listen and obey the gospel’s sound.

That the children may live long and be beautiful and strong, tea and coffee and tobacco they despise;  drink no liquor, and they eat but a very little meat; they are seeking to be great and good and wise.

They should be instructed young how to watch and guard the tongue, and their tempers train and evil passions bind; they should always be polite, and treat everybody right, and in every place be affable and kind.

They must not forget to pray, night and morning every day, for the Lord to keep them safe from every ill; and assist them to do right, that with all their mind and might, they may love him and may learn to do his will.  

None of them ever collected. 

 

I am now raising the ante—but for a similar desire on my part.  These essays/observations/opinions that form the substance of Omnium-Gatherum-Millerum were originally and mainly written for my children. There are now many readers of my musings who are not of my family, and I appreciate their readership, but I really don’t know who among my children or step-children are among my readers—still my primary audience.

The $10 incentive for the song is still on, and now extended to grandchildren, but I have added another incentive for my children and step-children to respond to.  It is very simple: The first one who emails me with a response to this posting will get a check in the mail for $60 from me to go to a nice place for dinner with their spouse or date (and hopefully, in their dinner conversation, discuss something I have written in the past three years that has been of interest to them). 

The test is on.  Ready--get set--GO!

Destiny or Coincidence?

I have just finished reading a book, Nafanua, by ethnobotanist (one who studies the relationship between plants and people) Paul Allen Cox.  The narrative of Dr. Cox’ experience as a scientist doing research and living with his family for a year in the small South Pacific island country of Samoa was informative and compelling and I thoroughly enjoyed the read. Having lived there with my wife for nearly two years brought back many fond memories. 

 

But what was of real interest to me was how and why he came to return to Samoa after serving a mission for his (and my) Church there many years before.

I have come to the conclusion that many seemingly random or coincidental events in our lives may, in fact, have the imprint of divine destiny stamped upon them—if we step out of our ‘comfort zone’ (should be called our 'inertia zone') and engage in what we believe is ‘the Lord’s errand.’ ‘When ye are in the service of your fellow man, ye are only in the service of your God’ (Book of Mormon). This seems to be the case with Paul Cox’ return to Samoa after years of rigorous scientific training that prepared him to return to a land and a people that he loved with a desire to do good.  He was drawn there as a result of his preparation and love for a people.  And then he was supported in his work in miraculous ways. 

 

That is the key; opportunities open up for us when we have a desire and have made a preparation to do good or to contribute in a positive way to the welfare of humanity.  Not that opposition to easy accomplishment will not also occur, but experience shows that after the struggle, after the sweat, and work, and setbacks a satisfying life and a step forward for humanity can be and will be accomplished with the Lord’s help. 

 

It is greatly satisfying to feel you are making a difference in the lives of people. I have learned that he who does the Lord’s work gets the Lord’s pay—and the Lord’s help, and a destiny will begin to unfold for the worker and those worked with or for which is marvelous to behold.

Evil

Anyone with a scintilla of perception knows that there is evil about us, but few will admit it--at least expressed that way.  The term is too old-fashioned, too Puritanical,  too restraining to the modern cultural liberal. I, here, present a counterpoint.

A modern dictionary search of the word shows that it is now nuanced into near-meaninglessness or even the precise opposite of its earlier meaning.  Evil, now so reported, is ‘sickness’ or ‘being unlucky’ or ‘offensive’ or ‘not in high esteem’ or ‘rude’ or, in the Dictionary of American Slang and Colloquial Expressions, ‘excellent’ (Can you believe it?). Or how about this: Dictionary.com gives as its number one ‘example sentence'-- ‘Every mortal must learn that there is neither power nor reality in evil.’   Talk about calling ‘black’ ‘white’!  Dylan said 'the times they are a-changing.’ Indeed they are. I say let's change them back. 

In the older sense (and still in the fundamental sense in the better dictionaries and for those with common sense), and in my sense, the word means ‘extreme moral wickedness,’ cruelty, or the causing of suffering by someone insensitive to the condition of one so evilly acted upon.  And so I would call kidnapping, rape or sexual abuse, emotional abuse, slaving, torture, terrorist activity, or the like, the epitome of evil.  It is this I inveigh against today.

Facile arguments to excuse the perpetrators of these kinds of evils cannot be countenanced with easy psychological explanations  or labels such as the person being ‘mentally ill’ or being sociopathic or, now in the law, being a ‘blameless predator.’ No. Sickness is a condition; evil is a behavior. It is not simply a thought. Evil is conduct, a matter of choice.  Sickness happens; evil is inflicted.  Sickness should be treated; evil must be fought. 

From where does it come?  It doesn’t come from poverty, or lack of education, or disadvantaged circumstances—as lamentable as these conditions might be. (Most of the great historical ‘lights’ to the world came from these conditions, and much of the world still lives in what we might call poverty conditions or lack 'higher' education and they are not evil.) 

No, (and now I know I will be dismissed by many) I believe it comes from a person’s allowing himself to be influenced by the adversary of all righteousness, even Satan.  Yes, I believe in the devil as I believe in God, or love, or gravitation or light or many things that influence us daily. C. S. Lewis explored this notion in his popular book The Screwtape Letters.   Many things we cannot see, or touch, or easily measure influence us for good or ill.  Satan is a powerful, unseen, negative influence and he encourages to do evil.   

As a Christian (or as a Jew) I believe there was a ‘tree of the knowledge of good and evil’ that could be partaken of, and in that it was partaken of by our first mortal parents and brought evil into the world.  My faith teaches us that it gave us the the alternatives necessary for moral choice. Evil—Satan’s curriculum and modus operandi-- became the attractive alternative, the counterpoint, the opposition to that which was declared, by God, to be good or right or acceptable.  War, for the souls of men, was declared. 

Mankind was given a choice--good or evil; thankfully we were, and are, being encouraged to choose the right by the scriptural standards and guidelines that have been given to us.  Those who have chosen wrongly and who have reinforced their wrongful inclinations to the point of acting upon them to the injury of the innocent, to the degree we read about in the daily news with the shootings, bombings, abductions, etc., have engaged in the blackest evil and become criminal and must be removed, permanently, from society. They have forfeited their right to ". . . liberty and the pursuit of happiness"--and maybe even "life" itself.

No, I am not tolerant of that which is intolerable. Evil which causes suffering or defilement of mind or body and which is inflicted upon the weak or innocent is intolerable — is evil and beyond the pale.    

Auld Lang Syne

As a part of my weekly routine I make several visits to a nursing home where my mother is a resident.  It is a depressing place, not because people are dying but because these people are not really given help to live (other than a bed, a stable room temperature, and something the establishment calls food) until they die.  The ‘residents’ have largely given up hope because they feel (and largely are) abandoned. Their emotional and spiritual needs are not being met.  There are few visits from clergy or family members and the staff provides little but custodial care.

It is a rare ‘resident’ who ever believed that they would one day be in such a place. 

So, what do we the visitors do?  We can be a friend and we can bring a gift. What kind of gift?  A gift of song, of a listening ear, of holding a hand, of being a reader, of giving some spiritual insight or message or hope for something they know they will not receive there.  In short, we minister to them. 

I have found that most of these folks have not really learned of or internalized or are regularly reinforced in their belief of an afterlife.  That can be our greatest gift. People, like me, who visit the elderly or incapacitated need to bring that hope to these people.  Since they cannot do things any longer for themselves it is our finest gift to let them share with us their former life; then we editorially select the wheat from the chaff and remind them of the positive parts they shared and then give to them a vision of a positive afterlife—something to look forward to.  Try to give to them a change of heart. Jesus said, “Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these [people] . . . , ye have done it unto me” ( Matt. 25:40-45). 

Victory over death and achieving eternal life is the theme of true religion and a theme expressed by thoughtful poets and sculptors for centuries. 

Here are two favorite poems that express the issue—Longfellow’s that can help our perspective and clarify our place as a helper, and Donne’s that can help us get a grip on death as but a transition not to be feared. 

 

A Psalm of Life-- Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Tell me not, in mournful numbers,
Life is but an empty dream!
For the soul is dead that slumbers,
And things are not what they seem.

Life is real! Life is earnest!
And the grave is not its goal;
Dust thou art, to dust returnest,
Was not spoken of the soul.

Not enjoyment, and not sorrow,
Is our destined end or way;
But to act, that each to-morrow
Find us farther than to-day.

Art is long, and Time is fleeting,
And our hearts, though stout and brave,
Still, like muffled drums, are beating
Funeral marches to the grave.

In the world’s broad field of battle,
In the bivouac of Life,
Be not like dumb, driven cattle!
Be a hero in the strife!

Trust no Future, howe’er pleasant!
Let the dead Past bury its dead!
Act,— act in the living Present!
Heart within, and God o’erhead!

Lives of great men all remind us
We can make our lives sublime,
And, departing, leave behind us
Footprints on the sands of time;

Footprints, that perhaps another,
Sailing o’er life’s solemn main,
A forlorn and shipwrecked brother,
Seeing, shall take heart again.

Let us, then, be up and doing,
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait. 

Death Be Not Proud by John Donne (spelling modernized)

Death be not proud, though some have called thee

Mighty and dreadful, for, thou art not so,

For, those, whom thou think’st, thou dost overthrow,

Die not, poor death, nor yet canst thou kill me.

From rest and sleep, which but thy pictures be,

Much pleasure, then from thee, much more must flow,

And soonest our best men with thee do go,

Rest of their bones, and souls delivery.

Thou art slave to fate, chance, kings, and desperate men,

And dost with poison, war, and sickness dwell,

And poppy, or charms can make us sleep as well,

And better then thy stroke; why swell’st thou then?

One short sleep past, we wake eternally,

And death shall be no more; death, thou shalt die.

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Finally, lets do as the poet Robert Burns suggested:

And we'll take a cup o’ kindness yet,
for auld lang syne.