Be Ye Not Ashamed

"Mine has been the opportunity to meet many wonderful men and women in various parts of the world. A few of them have left an indelible impression upon me. One such person was a naval officer from Asia, a brilliant young man who had been brought to the United States for advanced training. Some of his associates in the United States Navy, whose behavior had attracted him, shared with him at his request their religious beliefs. He was not a Christian, but he was interested. They told him of the Savior of the world, of Jesus born in Bethlehem, who gave his life for all mankind. They told him of the appearance of God, the Eternal Father, and the resurrected Lord to the boy Joseph Smith. They spoke of modern prophets. They taught him the gospel of the Master. The Spirit touched his heart, and he was baptized.

"He was introduced to me just before he was to return to his native land. We spoke of these things, and then I said, 'Your people are not Christians. You come from a land where Christians have had a difficult time. What will happen when you return home a Christian and, more particularly, a Mormon Christian?'

"His face clouded, and he replied, 'My family will be disappointed. I suppose they well cast me out. They will regard me as dead. As for my future and my career, I assume that all opportunity will be foreclosed against me.'

"I asked, 'Are you willing to pay so great a price for the gospel?'

"His dark eyes, moistened by tears, shone from his handsome brown face as he answered, 'It's true, isn't it?'

"Ashamed at having asked the question, I responded, 'Yes, it's true.'

"To this he replied, 'Then what else matters?'"

-Be Thou an Example, by Gordon B. Hinckley (pages 3-4)

What a great piece of knowledge to have...to know that things are true. If something is true than nothing could change our mind about it. For example, what if we witness a crime. We are brought in front of the judge in court and are asked what we saw. Other people might say differently, but what we saw would not be changed. We know what we say is true. It's the same with Christ. If we know what he taught is true, nothing should be able to change our mind. We should not "be ashamed" of Christ in our lives.

goodreads.com

I also want to invite y’all, if y’all want, to see what books I’ve read in the past, what I’m currently reading, and what I plan to read.

You would just have to go to this website, http://www.goodreads.com/user/show/7676064-jesse-cottam

Plunging into a Book

You know what’s great about books? You can get lost in them. Some of my favorite books are those where when you read them, you get start imagining in your mind all that is actually happening. I love creating a certain place in my mind using the descriptions that I’m reading. It doesn’t matter if there is a lot of description or very little description. With little description, you can use more of your own imagination to fill in the details. With a lot of description it’s easy to visualize what the place would look like and plunge into it.

For example, I remember when I read the great writing of J.R.R. Tolkien in “The Hobbit” a little under a year ago. I would read, for example, the section where the reader gets to met Gollum for the first time or goes through Mirkwood and be able to place me in those settings. I could feel the eerie and gloomy darkness of the cavern where Gollum lives. I could see the old trees of Mirkwood…a place where you couldn’t see any sunlight for days. I could see Bilbo and the dwarves floating inside barrels. I love books like that one.

I hope y’all have had the opportunity to plunge yourself into a book. I know it is one of the greatest experiences one can have in their life. If you want to, I ask you to post some comments on this blog post of books you’ve read that have helped you have a similar experience as I have had many times in my life.

The Challenge of Forgiveness

I just finished reading a section of the book, The Broken Heart: Applying the Atonement to Life’s Experiences, and felt like I want to share something that Bruce C. Hafen teaches. He his talking about forgiveness in cases of abuse from parents to children. He talks about the “transitional figure”…someone in the family line who decides to halt “the process” that occurs through generations (a process of parents abusing their children because those parents went through the same thing with their parents) “by simply absorbing, rather than passing along the current of harm. ‘Instead of seeking retribution, one learns to absorb pain, to be forgiving, to try to reconcile with forebears, and then become a generator of positive change in the next generation.’”

I really enjoy this section because it shows the power of forgiveness in a situation where forgiveness might be one of the hardest things to find.

He illustrates this through a story “of a young woman whose therapist encouraged her to place herself in such a transitional role, temporarily setting aside years of bitter feelings toward the father who had abused her…she…’went home.’ There, rather than confronting her father again over the pain he had caused her, she simply spent time with him, learning about his identity and experiences, including tape-recording and transcribing her interviews. Her therapist reported that this became ‘a gentle experience occurring in a forgiving atmosphere,’ and it ‘caused a dramatic reconciliation between the woman and her father,’ helping him ‘to face certain realities he had never faced.’”

He then goes on…

“Those who would become transitional figures confront the question about human nature raised so powerfully in Shakespeare’s Hamlet: should one forgive being wronged or seek to avenge the wrong? As Hamlet became convinced of the identity of his father’s murderer, his question was: ‘To be or not to be?’ Could he, more educated and reflective than most, muster the moral strength to offer mercy, rising above the typical impulse to seek revenge? Would he extend mercy unto forgiveness absorbing great injustice—or would he, like most others, simply avenge it?

Whether ‘tis nobler in the mind to suffer

The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune

Or to take arms against a sea of troubles

And by opposing, end them.

Then again, would Hamlet really ‘end’ the chain of harm by ‘opposing’ it? The blood-soaked stage at the end of Hamlet tells us that his choice to seek vengeance only extended the outrageous fortune. But true transitional figures find ways to absorb and suffer the slings and arrows—and thereby stop their intergenerational flow.”

I like to see this as an example to me of how forgiveness can heal rifts ripped between families and friendships…even in the situation of abuse. My goal is to personally be able to forgive others. I don’t want to fall as Hamlet did when he sought for vengeance instead of healing. 

“The divine blessing of hope”

“To develop toward Christlike character is a process, not an event. There may on day be some crowning event, in which the final endowment of grace completes a process that may take longer than mortal life. But to qualify for such a conclusion requires patience and persistence more than it requires flawlessness. It is, indeed, our own groping and reaching in the struggle for growth that qualifies us for divine help. Reid Nibley described this process in these lines:

A distant star

But not too far

To lure us out into the firmament

And tho we ne’er may reach it,

We have tried.

And in the trying

Have learned, perchance,

To make an orbit of our own.

“Our effort to reach for the distant star of the idea, of what ought to be, is much like the massive effort required to allow a rocket ship to break through the forceful pull of gravity. But our own orbit awaits us beyond the edge of gravity.

“The divine blessing of hope gives us much-needed perspective and strengthens our will to keep moving, against the odds, against the backward pull. It is the principle by which our Father guides us—line upon line, precept upon precept…

“And as we expand the reach of our circle of reality, the strangest thing happens: The circle of the ideal recedes to the horizon, creating both new aspirations and a new gap. We are like a toddler just learning to walk. A parent kneels a few steps away and coaxes with outstretched hands: ‘You can do it; come to Mommy!’ Just as the toddler is about to arrive, the parent might move back a step or two, stretching the todler’s reach beyond his grasp.

“Our Father in Heaven also waits and coaxes and literally gives us hope—and something about the perspective of hope maintains in our vision an optimal distance between the ideal and the real.”

-The Broken Heart: Applying the Atonement to Life’s Experiences by Bruce C. Hafen

Replacing Anger with Love

“’It wasn’t easy at first…I’d always believed that God would be there to sustain me if I was ever given a heavy cross to bear. But in the beginning, I felt alone. And abandoned. The God in whom I’d put my trust seemed to have vanished, along with all my hopes and dreams for the future. I called out to Him over and over again, asking for comfort and guidance. Asking why. Yet He seemed deag to my pleading. Finally I got angry and turned away from Him.’…

“’What happened next?’…

“’I stopped searching for answers.’

“Confused, he stared at her. ‘What do you mean?’

“’I stopped asking why.’

“’That’s it?’

“’Yes.’

“’I don’t understand.’

“…’Neither did I. And in the end I realized I never would. That’s my point. The thing is, Keith. God’s ways aren’t our ways. his plans surpass all our understanding. Seeking a logical explanation for what happened to me…it doesn’t make sense to even try. There is no logical, human answer. Only God knows why I was given that cross. Someday, when He and I are face-to-face, I might be given the wisdom to understand. But for now, it’s beyond me. I had to learn to accept without understanding.’

“…’Once I did that, I started to hear His voice again. I suspect it was there all along, but the clamor of my questions—demands, even—was drowning it out. And my anger was blinding me to His presence. you can’t reconnect with a loving God when your heart is filled with rage. So I let it go. And when I did, when I replaced it with love instead, God was waiting to welcome me back. That doesn’t mean it was always smooth sailing after that. Some days were rougher than others. Despair resurfaced on occasion. But over time, it got better. The sorrow over my loss will always be with me. But at least it’s easier to bear with God by my side.”

-Rainbow’s End, by Irene Hannon

“All we can do”

“I once had a sad and tender conversation with a stake president whose entire life represented a pattern of stalwart obedience. But he and his equally stalwart wife were carrying the burden of feeling total responsibility for the rebellion of their wayward son. He told me about their boy’s very serious mischief and their inability to contain him, despite continual and fervent effort. Then he said, “You know, we always tell our members that no other success can compensate for failure in the home. And the scriptures say that if a man doesn’t know how to manage his own house, how shall he take care of the Church?” (see 1 Timothy 3:5). Because of what he saw as his failure in the home, this man asked if he should request a release from his Church position.

“It was impossible for me to know, and probably impossible for him to know, just how much blame was really his for what his son was doing. But I knew firsthand of his good faith, his good heart, his own good life, and the spiritually successful lives of his other children. As I saw the tears in his eyes, I thought of the prophet Alma, whose rebellious son repented and later himself became a prophet. The older Alma was not released from his position as the high priest among the people of Zarahemla. I thought of other parents whose adolescent children have agency and friends and minds of their own. I thought of our Father in Heaven, whose rebellious offspring included not only Satan and Cain but a third of the hosts of heaven.

“I thought also that, while it is true that we can achieve no other success that will in fact compensate for our failures within or outside our homes, there is a success that compensates when we cannot—after all we can do in good faith (2 Nephi 25:33). That success is the Atonement of Jesus Christ, whose influence can mend what for us is beyond repair. perhaps, I thought, that holy influence could even do for this man’s son what it did for the younger Alma.

“Once we do all we can do, thereby qualifying for the blessings of mercy, the law of justice is satisfied. In addition, the Savior’s healing power may do its work of compensation. But restoring the balance of justice and restitution to an even state is not yet enough. Faith, repentance, and baptism are essential, but they are only the beginning, the gate by which we should enter the “strait and narrow path which leads to eternal life” (2 Nephi 31:18), not the end of the road”

-The Broken Heart: Applying the Atonement to Life’s Experiences, by Bruce C. Hafen

“We are the Earth’s Caretakers”

“Ida B, some day this land is going to be yours…And the law is going to say that you own this land and you can do pretty much what you want with it…But I want you to remember this: We don’t own the earth. We are the earth’s caretakers, Ida B…I’m grateful we have this land and grateful that you’ll have it, too. But we don’t own it. We take care of it and all of the things on it. And when we’re done with it, it should be left better than we found it.”

-Ida B…and Her Plans to Maximize Fun, Avoid Disaster, and (Possibly) Save the World, pg. 29-30