Be ye therefore perfect

The scriptures and the teachings of the church place on us a heavy burden of advice, obligations, and commandments. All these commandments seem to encompass and culminate in the statement of Matthew 5:48 “Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.”

How is this perfection to be achieved? Is it a far distant goal only to be realized in a distant heavenly future? Is it accomplished only by those who manage, through intense personal effort, to rid themselves of weaknesses and worldly desires?

My Thoughts Are Not Your Thoughts (Isa. 55:8)

“You can think of only one thing at a time!” (“Zeal Without Knowledge” Hugh Nibley Approaching Zion 1989 Deseret Book p.63). We are locked into a singularity of time and thought. Our minds are a single point of perception with time streaming quickly through and past us. Our brains, on the conscious level, process one thing at a time and we exist in an instant of time. In other words, our thoughts flow through our minds one minute piece at a time. Time streams past our consciousness one instant at a time. Each split second or instant passes and is lost forever leaving behind a memory that blurs and fades.

This is a fundamental limit on our ability to comprehend the world around us. In fact, can a mind that can only think of one thing at a time and is watching time stream past to be lost in the instant it is experienced really understand anything in a complex world – a world full of essentially infinite causes and infinite parts all acting and reacting against and with each other?

Faith Is Not Illusion

While not one of the five senses, spiritual perception is real and a means of gaining understanding.

We each have the capacity to discern on a spiritual level. An ability to learn, understand, and grow through the soul’s communion and communication with God. It is through this capacity that we can detect and feel spiritual outpourings from God. This spiritual acuity is more vibrant and developed in some. In others it is deadened by distractions, cares, wrong behavior, ignorance, or outright rejection of its reality or efficacy.

The basis of faith is in the experience of communicating with the Spirit of God. These experiences are not arrived at through a purely mental process or the working up of an emotional surge, rather, they come through the soul’s capacity to discern, connect, and understand spiritual outpourings from God.

The Parable of the Forum in the Fog

This parable came to mind after reading many books and several blogs.

At the top of a high weather scrubbed rock ridge is an old gathering place designed in the Greek style. The land around the forum falls away in vertical cliffs and fractured ravines. On a beautiful day, many people ascend the rocky path from the surrounding lowlands. They gather at the forum to talk, debate, and deliberate. The day is full of bright sun; the discussion is lively and compelling.

Raison d’Blog

As reflected in the title of this blog, I am a lifetime Mormon. I find it surprisingly energizing to think about and mull over the doctrines and teachings of the church and the scriptures. My purpose here is to force myself to give structure and coherence to those thoughts. While in my mind, ideas and supposed insights float around and seem gloriously brilliant. I’ve noticed, though, that when I try to put them in writing, the once brilliant thought fades to a lesser light, or worse–a bland statement so obvious it goes without saying.

Putting things into a structure understandable to others and, even more so, releasing it for view by an audience (however, limited) forces me to work through and develop my free-flowing mental effusions into a structured, useable form. I am looking for greater discipline and accountability in my thinking by doing so.

First blog

Um, er. . .