Monday, June 13, 2016

Reflections On Growth

Had there been one selfish reason for which the mission held me captivated, it would be the change it promises. We are such that spiritual stagnation is contrary to our comfort, and just as small children struggle to sit still, we grow frustrated at a lack of progression. The difficulties a mission promised seemed a straight shot out of immaturity as powerful as any coming of age story. When the meat and the substance of such challenges do their surgical work, the grimness of the operating room ought not to be viewed in isolation from the future results we so long desired. Elder Maxwell once noted we sometimes beg to be freed from trial when the result would be an incomplete process, thereby invalidating all past sufferings. By bailing on God's plan, we find ourselves jaded at the senselessness of being cut open without permitting Him to sew us back up. Hemingway found himself in such a state after extreme trials when he told the world in complete disillusionment, "The world breaks everyone...and those who will not break it kills."  Or Eliot's gloom, "Between the idea/and the reality...falls the shadow."  I would contest the shadow falls between the reality and the waiting, for between these so many minds are darkened.

Another more hopeful poet expressed some confidence in God's ability to raise us "beyond this rugged veil of mortal tears" in His way, perhaps the veil made rugged by 'tears' torn in our resolve. Our patience is paramount to the process. Such is seen in the mission, which is a kind of compacted life, and such is seen in mortality. I know God's plan demands our cooperation. 

In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.