See Myself

There are times when a voice in my head whispers to me what a fool I'm being. Not that I'm breaking a law, or doing something profoundly bad -- just being dumb again. What I do with this information has changed over the years, from seeking to hide from the shameful guilt, to seeking to embrace the gift from God. My attitude began to change while I was inactive, and reading (for some reason) Ether 12:27 -- God shows us our weaknesses so we can let him help us change. I read that scripture and the spirit reached through my inactivity and tapping me on the metaphysical shoulder, pointed to it and said, "See, see? That's important, see?" I understood it, all at once, and realized I needed to take things to God. So in a very scared way I faced the weaknesses that seemed to be shredding me and started talking honestly to God about them. Though I didn't feel it at the time, I see that moment as one of my greatest acts of faith (what little faith I had to exercise). I really didn't feel anything at the time. But looking back I can see that things really started happening in my life. I was soon even more inactive. That doesn't really follow the Orthodox Mormon storyline, does it? Well, because I'm back to being an orthodox Mormon I need to justify my story by saying that it brought me furter along the path I needed to traverse. Closer to eventually becoming Mormon again. Spirituality follows such backwards logic from the mortal perspective.

Before reading this scripture while inactive, before going inactive, the only way I could deal with weakness was to whitewash. Ignore, avoid, shun. What is the opposite of "see"? Remain blind? Be blind? That was how I was going to achieve salvation, be blind to the problems of my life. It had never occurred to me to talk to God about my problems in anything other than a "I will try harder to do all I can do" way. I really liked the Mormon Orthodoxy, and I really liked that the Church whitewashed its history as well. I'm the oldest in my family, I hear oldests tend toward this weakness.

Fortunately I came to a place where I could no longer hide from the weaknesses in myself, nor in the church's history. I thought at the time that meant I couldn’t be saved, and that the church couldn't save me. Too imperfect, both. Only through discovering the spiritual consequences of acting on Ether 12:27 did I discover that God could work around and through my weaknesses. God's grace (his power) eventually brought into my life amazing people (both LDS and not) and new ideas (mostly not from the scriptures). I even found hope, and a connection to heaven. I changed and grew--because of God, because of the atonement. At some point I decided that God could work with weak church historical leaders. Suddenly the stories that drove me away gave me great hope as I returned--they weren't perfect, I'm not perfect, and its okay. I'm enough orthodox again that I'm back to really liking the whitewashed history of Sunday School, (yet, of the point, I'm still really happy to learn the expanded story of Thomas Marsh on Mormon Stories Podcast, see http://mormonstories.org/?p=258.)

Today Brother Marsh and the church's whitewashed history don't enter my mind much as I go about my life being Mormon. On the other hand, my own weaknesses, the Spirit's promptings about my dumbness, my own history -- that's before my face much, much more. These words have more meaning to me now, than before: working out my salvation, exercising faith, coming unto Christ. Today I want to remind myself that when the little voice in my head shows me my stupidity, I need to turn and see. I fear that someone will misconstrue this entry as my sermon to the long-dead Brother Marsh. Actually, what started this entry was the little voice in my head saying, "You've spent a long time reading entries in the blogernacle that don't really matter, you have more important things to do." Wrestling with tiny promptings like that is the most Mormon thing I did today.