Can You Come Out To Play?

I suppose that there are few people over the age of three who don’t remember hearing that question asked of them, or if not, they themselves, asking, ‘Mom, can I go play now?’ 

Play is a natural concomitant of growing up.  It is important as a way of visualizing oneself as having ‘adult’ abilities or competencies—of growing up to be like Mom or Dad or some hero and participating in the world around us. It is a means of developing power and control of our environment and hopefully ourselves.  It is, at its best, re-creation or initial creation and discovery. 

As we get older we can play sports or a musical instrument and derive very positive benefits from the participation.  This kind of play, satisfying and fun play,  quality play, should be and usually is challenging, growth-promoting, and not damaging to oneself or others. Done wisely it can be contributive to a healthy life. 

But in playing or participating in some activities, one can get dirty or injured or lose something of great value. We can play in the mud and get grimy; we can play in the grass and get grass stains on our knees. We can play the slot machines or play the odds in various gambling endeavors such as cards or horseracing or the financial markets and lose our financial security, our honesty, our integrity. We can ‘play around’ in our youth and in young adulthood and lose innocence, freedom and self-respect.

And thus we can lose our future. 

Life is not a game.  And if we are wise we will not ‘play around’ with something as important as our eternal future.

But life teaches me that many or most people have played around to some degree inappropriately.  All of us have become unclean, morally speaking.  To regain peace, self-respect, and acceptability to our Maker we need to become clean again. 

It is possible; there is a way to redeem our future.  It is a religious way that has the authority and power to effect the needed change. 

If you are still reading, I invite you to consider my proposition. 

I concede that there are many under religious guise who assert that their solution in providing hope for the hopeless, strength for the weak, an anchor for the drifting, a cleansing of the filth is the ‘right one.’ Yes, there are some standard approaches we alone can do, religious and secular, that are needful and do some good.  But in the final analysis they do no more good than running water and using hand soap on a seriously infected wound.  The cleansing must go at least as deep as the wound and be more powerful than the infecting agent. 

The only moral surgeon who can do that is our Savior, Jesus Christ.  That is why we call Him our Savior.  He uses His ‘medical’ team to assist Him—His Church and its qualified and approved priesthood-directed helpers and approved methods—principles and doctrines, ordinances, and covenants—in short, the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.  If a church has these ingredients and the Savior and Redeemer Jesus Christ is the chief cornerstone and the immortality and eternal life of man its objective, and if a man or woman submits to God's requirements and comes unto Him he or she can be cleansed and saved and find peace in this life and Eternal Life in the life to come.  What ‘game’ can be better than that?

I bear my formal witness and conviction to you that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is that Church.  If you are not a believer I invite your sincere investigation.  If you are a believer and have slipped you can return and repent. I have staked my life on this conviction and testimony.  I know this to be true. 

Who Are We—Really?

I am intrigued by the fact that the greatest man in history, Jesus of Nazareth, asked some of His closest disciples, “Whom do men say that I, the Son of man am?”  In answer they put forth a number of names.  Then He asked, “But whom say ye that I am?”  One, Simon Peter, summoned up courage and answered, I think, for most of the other disciples, saying, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.”  Jesus acknowledged to Simon Peter that he got it right. (Matt. 16:13-18)

 

Now what is fascinating is this: How did Simon get it right? How did he really know?  Jesus said that it was “revealed” unto him by God, “my Father which is in heaven.”  How?  Maybe by asking God in sincere prayer and not by judging by appearances—where He was from (“Can anything good come from Galilee?”) or what He was wearing, or what he did ‘for a living,’ etc.  How we know is by being worthy of receiving personal revelation and then asking for it and then getting it. 

    

Hearing others’ opinions on who, notwithstanding His name, others said He was, and notwithstanding Peter’s own close personal association with the Man, Jesus, it took revelation to confirm the divine identity of Jesus for Peter. 

Maybe it is the same with us. We’ve been given a name by our parents.  Over time we have established a public identity and a private identity that may or may not be a true evaluation of who we have become convinced we are.  But neither of the two—the public identity or the personal identity may be accurate.  Either perception may be distorted by deception or by other means. It is for many people.  It also can be cleared up by revelation. 

If we come to know that we have a divine identity, a blood and spirit relationship to God, and we are much more than a ‘butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker,’ or whatever, we will begin to act more in concert with who we really are.  We will take off the mask, will quit the posturing, will begin to act with more humility and will find ourselves coming to be more at peace with ourselves and with our fellow man. 

 

Playacting can be exhausting, expensive, and wasteful.  People gravitate toward the genuine man or woman.  And the genuine man or woman, boy or girl, knows that he/she is a child of God and will begin to live up to it.  There is a nobility in divinity and of knowing we are of noble birth. We will measure all our actions by this true identity and will be much less likely to do wrong or go wrong.

The sooner we find out who we really are, and whose we really are, the better for us and those who know us. 

A Gentleman

When I was a boy of about twelve years I began to be interested in car racing.  I looked forward each Memorial Day to hearing the announcer of the Indianapolis 500 car race say, ‘Gentlemen, start your engines!’  It was not just the thrill of speed that I looked forward to, but it was envisioning these brave heroes in the powerful cars they controlled with such precision. And I believed, without confirming evidence, that they were all ‘gentlemen.’ 

 

It was also at this time and a little later in my youth other heroes were identified in my mind—Ted Williams in baseball, war heroes, presidents such as Abraham Lincoln and noble statesmen such as Winston Churchill, explorers such as Lewis and Clark, and Bible heroes such as Joshua.  Invariably in my mind I invested them with qualities that I considered manly, especially ‘gentlemanly.’ 

 

In time I became more discriminatory as to who should receive the noble title of ‘gentleman.’  Fortunately many (but not all) of my early assessments proved to be correct.  It was with increasingly wider reading and exposure to numerous living men in scouting, athletics, schooling and Church I became acquainted with the men who met the criteria and men who didn’t.  Let me share with the reader a few of the virtues I believe a gentleman has and some observations of others who helped me crystallize my opinions:

A gentleman has respectability and shuns vices.  It is a distinction of character and behavior rather than of class, ethnicity, or any other consideration.  The statesman Edmund Burke said, “A king may make a nobleman but he cannot make a gentleman.”In fact it was a king, James 1^st, who is reputed to have said, ‘I can make a lord,’ he told his old nurse when she begged him to make her son a gentleman, ‘but only God Almighty can make a gentleman.’

A real gentleman is truly a noble man, a worthy man, a conscientious man, a man of integrity and honor who is generous and acts rightly from good principles.  He is honest, courageous, gracious, polite and considerate of others. 

In the literature of my Church some of the qualities of such a man, Moroni, were noted: Moroni was “…a man of perfect understanding; yea a man who did not delight in bloodshed; a man whose soul did joy in the liberty and freedom of his country; …a man whose heart did swell with thanksgiving to his God for the many privileges and blessing which He bestowed upon His people; a man who did labor exceedingly for the welfare and safety of his people; …who was firm in the faith of Christ; …who…taught never to give an offense; …to [do] good; to resist iniquity….

In my April 8, 2011 posting I lauded the views of the philosopher Confucius regarding the nature of a gentleman.  It is in these gentler, more refined, more considerate and thoughtful and polite qualities that he discusses that many of our young men, today, apparently get little training. 

 

A good place to start for any man, young or old would be to review and commit (or recommit) to the Scout Law of the Boy Scouts of America:  ‘A scout [gentleman] is trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous,  kind, obedient, cheerful, thrifty, brave, clean, and reverent.’

Who could argue with that?  Who couldn’t benefit himself or others by such conduct? 

Looking Back

I have lauded, over several hundred postings, the virtue and value of the ‘giants’ in my life but I have said little about the lives of failures, fools and sinners.  Yet everyone whom we take cognizance of makes a contribution to our welfare.  The scoundrel or wastrel can serve our success quite as well as the hero.  One shows us the experiences to be avoided while the other is setting up the examples for us to follow. 

The scriptures, for the discerning reader, provide examples not only of the finest in human response to the challenges or opportunities of life, but also the tragedies experienced by those who chose to take the ‘low road’ when the better choice was ignored, disregarded, or fought against.  There are probably at least as many villains as saints in the holy writ and it is intended that we learn from both. 

 

Take Lot’s wife, for example.  Lot was the nephew of the great Old Testament prophet Abraham.  When Lot’s family chose the verdant Jordan River valley as their place of residence it so happened that two very wicked cities occupied the southern part of the valley.  (The Lord always provides for or allows an “opposition in all things,” even good things, so that man can make moral choices.) When the sin and depravity of the inhabitants of these two cities became more than the Lord could tolerate from these unrepentant children He warned them that they would be destroyed.  He gave a last chance for any righteous to quickly leave the area before He “rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire.”  Lot got his family out before the conflagration occurred but his wife, not being strong enough to carry out the commandment of the angels against looking back, looked or turned back.  Because she disobeyed she ‘became a pillar of salt” (Genesis 19:26).  She became the negative example for us to learn from. 

New Testament writer Luke suggested that looking back on sin would also be a part of our own problem.  While he was making a comparison between the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah and the destruction that will attend our own society at the Second Coming of Christ he said, “Remember Lot’s wife” (Luke 17:32).  To ‘remember Lot’s wife” may keep us from making her mistake.  

One of the leaders of my Church (Sterling W. Sill) many years ago made these observations:  

We may not always look where we are going, but we can be pretty sure that we will usually go where we are looking.  

Back in the old days on the farm, the horses’ bridles were equipped with blinders to give their attention a forward focus.  When the horses were without blinders, the distractions from right and left caused them to step on too many plans or to make a crooked furrow. 

When we listen to the voices enticing us from behind, the power of our forward purpose is usually lost.

We cannot even afford to look back on our successes for longer than it takes to confirm their lessons.  For as someone has said, ‘You can’t win this year’s ball games by reading last year’s press notices.’ 

And George Washington, without quite as much verve as Sterling Sill, remarked:

            “Never look back except to derive useful lessons from past errors and profit from our dearly bought experience.” 

So to take Washington’s advice we should look back and ‘Remember Lot’s wife,’ but only to learn from her error; not to look back at what she found so fascinating. 

Jesus provides even better advice and this warning:  

            “No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:62).   

Unless looking back gives us the power to move forward.   

Olympian!

Who can watch the Olympic Games (winter or summer) without marveling at the focus, determination, and demonstrated performance of these dedicated athletes?  

The same, of course, could be said of great musicians or explorers or scholars or reformers.  But could not—using my criteria—honor also be made of great mothers or the ‘Mother Teresa’s,’ or of the stoic sufferers of this world—those who are out of the spotlight or even of the notice of any other human being but who are enduring the vicissitudes with the fortitude of an Olympian? And how about the brave ones—the firefighters, police, and military defenders?  Yes, they too. 

My point is that we who have not paid the price of self-sacrifice, of time—in fact often endless hours of deprivation—of humiliation, bodily pain, surrender of comfort, and the agony of what has been called ‘defeat’ have not experienced one of the truly important dimensions of life.  With all the glory of the Games that the world sees every four years, there is also the endless hours of ‘blood, sweat, and tears’ that every serious competitor knows.  I think that those who never get off the couch and onto the floor of the arena truly do not know what has gone into the ‘good fight.’

But there are some who know.  There is a fellowship of those who have paid the price.

And so I commend those who have practiced, and practiced, and practiced and who then submit themselves to the scrutiny of those less practiced for their evaluation. 

Whether the performer or parent, paramedic or patient ‘wins,’ ‘places,’ or just finishes—but has given all to try to finish and make a good showing—I  commend them and place them on my pedestal of approbation. 

They are the Olympians in deed!