The Room Where Faith Lives

The Room Where Faith Lives

We often talk about faith and doubt as though they are opposites.

If I have faith, I shouldn't doubt. If I doubt, my faith must be weakening. And if I can somehow eliminate all my doubts, eventually I will arrive at perfect faith.

But I'm not sure that's actually how scripture describes faith.

Alma says:

«“Faith is not to have a perfect knowledge of things; therefore if ye have faith ye hope for things which are not seen, which are true.”

Alma 32:21»

That definition changes something for me.

Faith isn't certainty.

In fact, Alma specifically distinguishes faith from certainty. Earlier in the chapter he says that if someone knows something, they no longer have cause to believe it, because they know it.

Then he describes his famous experiment with the seed. Plant the word. Nourish it. Pay attention to what happens.

When the seed begins to swell and grow, Alma says something fascinating:

«“Your knowledge is perfect in that thing, and your faith is dormant.”»

In that thing.

You have learned something. You no longer need faith concerning that particular piece of the experiment because experience has given you knowledge.

But you haven't suddenly learned everything.

There is still an enormous landscape beyond what you know.

And that's where faith continues.

Maybe doubt isn't faith's opposite

I think we sometimes make a mistake when we picture faith and doubt at opposite ends of a line:

Faith ←——————→ Doubt

I'm beginning to think the relationship is more complicated.

Doubt and faith can both exist because our knowledge is incomplete.

If I have absolute knowledge, I don't need faith about that particular thing.

If I don't know, however, there is room for questions.

There is room for doubt.

But there is also room for belief.

And hope.

And faith.

In that sense, doubt doesn't necessarily destroy the room where faith lives.

It can be part of the room.

That doesn't mean doubt is inherently virtuous. Doubt can become stubborn, cynical, or unwilling to consider evidence, just as certainty can become arrogant and unwilling to consider evidence.

The virtue isn't doubt.

The virtue is honesty.

I want to be able to say:

This I know.

This I believe.

This I question.

This I don't know.

And this I still hope is true.

I think there is room in discipleship for all five sentences.

“Lord, I believe”

One of my favorite expressions of faith in scripture comes from a father desperate for Christ to help his son.

Jesus tells him that all things are possible to one who believes.

The father responds:

«“Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief.”

Mark 9:24»

I've always loved the contradiction inside that sentence.

Except maybe it isn't a contradiction.

The man believes.

The man also struggles to believe.

And somehow he brings both of those things to Christ at the same time.

Christ doesn't stop him and say, “Come back when you've eliminated the second half of that sentence.”

He helps him.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland used this very story when speaking about faith and doubt. He encouraged people to honestly acknowledge their questions and concerns, and he specifically said:

«“I am not asking you to pretend to faith you do not have.”»

I love that.

Because pretending certainty isn't faith.

Sometimes “I don't know, but I hope” may be a more honest expression of faith than saying “I know” when I really don't.

We want a burning bush

There is a scene in Season 3, Episode 1 of Daredevil that I've been thinking about.

Matt Murdock is physically broken and spiritually angry.

He survived the collapse of Midland Circle, but his life as he knew it is gone. He's injured. He's isolated. He feels abandoned by God.

Father Paul Lantom tells him:

«“The burning-bush business doesn't happen very often, even in the Bible. He's usually more subtle than that. You want to hear God, Matthew, you have to listen more carefully. Because he speaks in whispers.”»

It's fiction, of course.

But there's something very scriptural about the idea.

Elijah discovered that the Lord wasn't in the wind.

He wasn't in the earthquake.

He wasn't in the fire.

Then came the still small voice.

Sometimes I think what we really want from God isn't faith.

We want the burning bush.

Give me something undeniable.

Give me an angel.

Give me a miracle.

Give me an answer so unmistakable that I never have to wonder again.

Remove the uncertainty.

Then I'll believe.

Except the Book of Mormon gives us a rather inconvenient example of people who got exactly that.

Laman and Lemuel got the angel

Laman and Lemuel didn't merely hear family stories about miracles.

They experienced them.

They saw an angel.

They witnessed divine deliverance.

They experienced the Liahona.

They heard the voice of the Lord.

They saw Nephi exercise miraculous power.

They crossed an ocean in a ship their brother said God had commanded him to build.

At one point, after an angel literally appeared and told them the Lord would deliver Laban into their hands, they almost immediately began questioning how the Lord could possibly deliver Laban.

That's remarkable.

They got the burning bush.

And it didn't produce lasting faith.

That tells me something important.

A miracle can provide evidence. It cannot make the next choice for us.

An angel can answer one question.

It cannot force me to nurture what I experienced afterward.

Laman and Lemuel demonstrate that removing doubt in one moment doesn't necessarily create enduring faith.

And that fits Alma perfectly.

Knowledge can become perfect “in that thing.”

Then comes the next thing.

And the next.

And eventually even Moses has to walk away from the burning bush.

What happens when we discover we were wrong?

This matters to me because sometimes religious people encounter information that doesn't fit what they were taught.

Maybe it's Church history.

Maybe it's something a prophet or apostle said.

Maybe it's an interpretation of scripture.

Maybe it's a policy.

Maybe it's something we were absolutely certain God wanted, only to discover later that our certainty was misplaced.

And if we've been taught that faith means certainty, we suddenly have a serious problem.

Because now intellectual honesty and faith can begin to feel like enemies.

If I admit that this thing was wrong, what else might be wrong?

If a Church leader made a mistake, what does that mean about prophets?

If something I was taught about Church history wasn't accurate, what does that mean about everything else?

It becomes frighteningly easy to fall into an all-or-nothing framework:

Either I must find some way to prove that my religion has never been wrong, or I must conclude that none of it is true.

But those aren't the only possibilities.

President Dieter F. Uchtdorf acknowledged plainly that there have been times when members or leaders in the Church have made mistakes. In that same Come, Join with Us address, he said:

«“It's natural to have questions.”»

And he spoke of faith growing even in the “sometimes sandy soil of doubt and uncertainty.”

That gives us another possibility.

Maybe I can say:

Yes. That was a mistake.

And then ask:

What does that mistake actually tell me about everything else?

Maybe the honest answer is sometimes, “Not as much as I originally feared.”

Other times it may require me to change something I believed.

And sometimes the answer may simply be:

I don't know.

“I don't know” is not a failure of testimony

I think we need to become more comfortable with those three words.

I don't know.

Elder M. Russell Ballard acknowledged that sometimes we can study, learn, and know, while at other times we have to believe, trust, and hope. He also acknowledged that we may not always find satisfying answers to our questions.

That matters.

Because faith shouldn't require me to invent an answer just because uncertainty makes me uncomfortable.

If I don't know why something happened, I don't know.

If I don't know how to reconcile two things, I don't know.

If the historical evidence points somewhere I wasn't expecting, I should be willing to follow the evidence.

Faith doesn't require me to call something true when I know it isn't.

Faith doesn't require me to pretend an unanswered question has been answered.

Faith doesn't require manufactured certainty.

Elder Holland's words come back again:

Don't pretend to faith you don't have.

Start with what you actually have.

Hope deserves more credit

Maybe part of our problem is that we sometimes treat hope as a consolation prize for people who haven't achieved knowledge yet.

But scripture doesn't.

Moroni connects hope directly with faith.

Alma does too.

Faith is hoping for things that are not seen, which are true.

Hope isn't defective knowledge.

It's part of faith.

There are things I believe about God that I cannot prove.

There are things I hope are true about eternity.

There are experiences in my life that I interpret as God's involvement, while recognizing that someone else might interpret them differently.

There are questions for which I don't currently have satisfying answers.

And there are things I once thought I understood that I have had to reconsider.

I don't think I need to hide any of that from God.

He already knows.

Maybe faith isn't about eliminating uncertainty

Father Lantom tells Matt that God doesn't usually send burning bushes.

Laman and Lemuel remind us that even when He sends the equivalent of one, spectacular evidence doesn't guarantee enduring faith.

Elijah reminds us to listen for the still small voice.

Alma reminds us that faith exists precisely because our knowledge isn't perfect.

The father in Mark shows us that belief and unbelief can exist inside the same human heart.

And modern prophets and apostles have acknowledged that questions are natural, Church leaders can make mistakes, some questions don't presently have satisfying answers, and we shouldn't pretend to possess faith we don't actually have.

Put all of that together, and I come to a different understanding of faith.

Maybe faith isn't measured by how much uncertainty I've managed to eliminate.

Maybe part of faith is what I choose to nurture within the uncertainty that remains.

That doesn't mean ignoring evidence.

It doesn't mean suppressing questions.

It doesn't mean believing something simply because I desperately want it to be true.

It means being honest about the boundaries of my knowledge and still leaving room for hope.

So perhaps my testimony doesn't always have to sound like:

“I know.”

Sometimes it might sound like:

I know some things.

I have good reasons to believe some things.

I have questions about some things.

I genuinely don't know some things.

And there are beautiful things I still hope are true.

I don't think God is threatened by any of those sentences.

And I don't think faith requires me to erase any of them.

After all, if Alma is right, faith was never perfect knowledge in the first place.

Perhaps uncertainty isn't the place where faith dies.

Perhaps it is the room where faith lives.

The Myth Of The Myth Of Sisyphus.

I've been thinking about Sisyphus.

In Greek mythology, Sisyphus was a king who repeatedly tried to cheat death. He even managed, for a time, to imprison Death itself. Later, after finally being taken to the underworld, he devised another scheme that allowed him to return to the world of the living, where he once again refused to die.

Eventually, his punishment became famous.

Sisyphus was condemned to push a massive boulder up a hill. Each time he approached the top, the stone would roll back down.

He would walk down after it.

Then push it again.

Forever.

We get the expression "Sisyphean task" from his story: work that is exhausting, repetitive, and ultimately impossible to complete.

Much later, the philosopher Albert Camus used Sisyphus as a way of thinking about the human condition. If Sisyphus cannot change his circumstances, perhaps he can still change his relationship to them. The gods can control the mountain and the stone. They can ensure that he never accomplishes his apparent goal.

But there is still something they cannot completely control:

What Sisyphus makes of the experience.

Camus famously concluded, "One must imagine Sisyphus happy."

That got me thinking about another story involving a man and a rock.

There is a Christian parable, often called "Push Against the Rock." It isn't scripture, but I've heard variations of it many times.

In the story, the Lord tells a man to push against a great rock.

So the man does.

Day after day, month after month, year after year, he pushes against that rock with everything he has.

And it doesn't move.

Eventually he becomes discouraged. He tells the Lord that he has done what was asked of him for all this time and has accomplished nothing. The rock hasn't moved even an inch.

The Lord points out what the man hasn't noticed.

Look at your shoulders.

Look at your arms.

Look at your hands.

Look at the strength and endurance you have developed.

Then comes the lesson:

I asked you to push the rock. I never asked you to move it.

The rock hasn't changed.

But the man has.

And that made me think of something considerably less ancient:

The Karate Kid.

Daniel wants Mr. Miyagi to teach him karate.

Instead, Mr. Miyagi apparently decides he has acquired a source of free teenage labor.

Wax the cars.

Sand the floor.

Paint the fence.

Paint the house.

Eventually Daniel gets angry. He has done everything Miyagi asked, but Miyagi hasn't taught him karate.

Then Miyagi starts throwing strikes at him.

"Wax on. Wax off."

"Sand the floor."

"Paint the fence."

And Daniel's body responds.

He has been learning karate the entire time.

Daniel thought the purpose was to finish the chores.

The man in the parable thought the purpose was to move the rock.

Sisyphus thought everything depended upon getting his stone over the summit.

All three are judging the experience by the visible result.

But what if sometimes the most important result isn't what our work does to the thing in front of us?

What if it's what the work does to us?

And I think there's another step beyond that.

The work doesn't only change what we can do.

It can change what we can see.

And eventually, it can change what we want.

The person who begins climbing a mountain chooses a destination based upon what he can see from the bottom.

But climbing changes him.

His legs become stronger. His endurance increases. He learns how to climb.

And then he reaches higher ground and discovers something else.

He can see farther.

There are horizons from there that were invisible when he began.

Maybe that's one reason we shouldn't judge every experience solely by whether we accomplished the goal that originally sent us there.

Sometimes pursuing a goal creates a person who eventually outgrows the goal.

That doesn't necessarily mean the original goal was foolish.

Maybe it was exactly the mountain we needed to climb in order to see the next one.

That thought changes Sisyphus for me, too.

His great sin, in many versions of the myth, is his refusal to accept mortality. He cheats death repeatedly. He treats continuing to live as winning and dying as losing.

And what is his eventual punishment?

Endlessness.

He wanted existence without an ending, and the gods gave him a task without an ending.

Perhaps, if Sisyphus were capable of learning from his punishment, centuries of pushing that stone might eventually teach him something he refused to understand in life:

Not everything that ends has failed.

A day ends.

A season ends.

Childhood ends.

A song ends.

A life ends.

Their endings don't erase what they contained.

Perhaps eventually Sisyphus wouldn't want to cheat death anymore.

He wouldn't need to hurry it or invite it. Life would still be worth living for as long as it was his to live.

But when death eventually came, he could allow it.

Maybe he would finally understand that continuing forever isn't necessarily the same thing as winning.

Perhaps the greatest change produced by pushing the stone wouldn't be that Sisyphus finally became strong enough to move it.

Maybe he would become someone who no longer needed to.

That brings this much closer to home for me.

When I was a young man, there were two things I really wanted.

I wanted to become a professional classical singer.

I imagined opera, choral and concert work, and perhaps Broadway if the opportunity ever presented itself.

And I wanted to be a husband and a dad.

Neither was a bad dream.

I worked toward the first one. I studied music and singing. I learned what serious musicianship requires.

I learned that excellence costs something.

You practice when you would rather not practice.

You repeat something that almost works until it actually works.

You study.

You accept criticism.

You discover weaknesses and work on them.

You keep learning when nobody is applauding.

And while I was still learning what it would take to pursue that first dream, the second one began happening.

I became a husband.

Then I became a dad.

And something changed.

"I want to be a husband and father" wasn't enough anymore.

I wanted to be good at it.

At the same time, the more I learned about the professional singing career I had imagined, the more I understood what pursuing it at the level I wanted could require: rehearsals, performances, auditions, travel, evenings away, instability, and continually arranging life around the needs of the profession.

I came to believe that, for me, I couldn't pursue the professional singing career I had envisioned and also become the kind of husband and father I wanted to become.

So I chose.

I gave up the professional career.

For a long time, I've thought about that simply as choosing one dream over another.

Now I'm not sure that's the whole story.

Because maybe pursuing excellence in the first dream helped teach me how to desire excellence in the second.

Music taught me that wanting something isn't the same as becoming good at it.

Being a singer and becoming a good singer are very different things.

And perhaps when I became a father, some part of me already understood that lesson.

Being a dad and becoming a good dad aren't the same thing either.

If something matters deeply enough, you give something of yourself to become better at it.

So perhaps the years spent pursuing music weren't simply years spent walking toward a destination I eventually chose not to reach.

Maybe that mountain gave me stronger legs.

Maybe it gave me perspective.

Maybe climbing it allowed me to see another horizon more clearly.

President Dallin H. Oaks taught about this in "Good, Better, Best." Some of life's hardest choices aren't between something good and something evil.

Sometimes they're between things that are both good.

And sometimes we have to give up something good in order to choose something better or best.

That doesn't make the good thing bad.

Music wasn't the wrong mountain.

The dream wasn't a mistake.

Perhaps climbing toward it helped me become capable of recognizing what I wanted even more.

That fits with something else President Oaks taught in "The Challenge to Become":

"The gospel of Jesus Christ is the plan by which we can become what children of God are supposed to become."

That word matters to me:

Become.

The gospel isn't merely a plan for accomplishing things.

It is a plan for becoming something.

In Doctrine and Covenants 122:7, the Lord tells Joseph Smith during an unimaginably difficult period:

"All these things shall give thee experience, and shall be for thy good."

Notice that He doesn't say every experience will give us the result we originally wanted.

He says it will give us experience.

And it can be for our good.

Doctrine and Covenants 98 teaches that the Lord gives His children knowledge "line upon line, precept upon precept."

Maybe there are things Heavenly Father cannot meaningfully show us from where we're currently standing.

Not because He's hiding them.

Because we haven't climbed high enough to see them yet.

We want Him to show us the entire map.

Sometimes He gives us the next few steps.

Push the rock.

Wax the car.

Paint the fence.

Practice the scales.

Raise the child.

Serve the person.

Keep the covenant.

Follow Christ today.

Then do it again tomorrow.

And somewhere along the way, something happens.

We become stronger.

But strength may be only the beginning.

We start seeing things differently.

Our priorities change.

Our understanding deepens.

And eventually we may discover that we don't even want exactly the same things we wanted when we began.

I think C. S. Lewis understood something about this.

In Mere Christianity, he compares our relationship with God to a house being renovated. We invite God in expecting Him to fix a few things. At first, the repairs make sense. Then He starts knocking the house about in ways we didn't expect.

Lewis's point is that God isn't merely trying to make our existing little house more comfortable.

He intends to make something much greater of it.

Lewis returns to the same idea when talking about desire. Sometimes our problem isn't that we want too much.

We want too little.

We are limited by what we currently understand enough to desire.

That means God's work in us may include changing our desires themselves.

Maybe spiritual growth can be thought of in three stages:

I can do things I couldn't do before.

I can see things I couldn't see before.

I can desire things I wasn't capable of desiring before.

That third one may be the greatest transformation.

Elder Robert D. Hales taught that discipleship isn't simply a list of things we do. It is a state of being. Following Jesus Christ is ultimately about becoming like Him.

That changes the way I think about goals.

Goals matter.

I don't think the lesson is that we shouldn't make plans because God might change them anyway.

Quite the opposite.

Set goals.

Work.

Practice.

Study.

Push your rock.

Paint your fence.

Climb your mountain.

Pray about what you're doing and give it your best effort.

But don't become so attached to the destination chosen by the person you used to be that you refuse to listen to the person God is helping you become.

Sometimes the goal will still be right, and the work will help us reach it.

Sometimes we'll discover a better way of reaching it.

Sometimes circumstances will prevent us from reaching it at all.

And sometimes we'll climb far enough to realize that we don't want the same destination anymore.

That isn't necessarily failure.

The person standing higher on the mountain has information the person at the bottom didn't possess.

And maybe that's one reason Heavenly Father works with us line upon line.

He isn't simply directing traffic toward predetermined accomplishments.

He's raising His children.

He's teaching us to become.

Looking back now, I don't have to decide that my dream of professional singing was somehow misguided in order to be grateful I chose something else.

It was good.

Music became part of me.

The discipline became part of me.

The pursuit of excellence became part of me.

And even though I ultimately chose not to make professional singing my life's work, I carried what I learned from pursuing it into the life I chose instead.

We don't leave everything we gained on the first mountain when we choose another.

We carry the legs we built climbing it.

That's what I hope my family remembers.

You have goals right now.

Some of them you will accomplish exactly as you imagine.

Some will change.

Some may disappear completely.

There may even be something you currently want desperately that, twenty years from now, you'll be grateful happened differently.

That doesn't automatically make today's work wasted.

So when the boulder doesn't seem to be moving, perhaps there are more questions worth asking than:

"Why haven't I accomplished this yet?"

Ask:

What has this taught me?

What can I do now that I couldn't do before?

What can I see from here that I couldn't see when I started?

And perhaps most importantly:

What do I want now that I have become this person?

Then take that answer to Heavenly Father.

Because maybe the miracle isn't always that He finally moves the boulder.

Sometimes the miracle is that after years of pushing it, we look up and discover a horizon we couldn't see before.

And perhaps we realize that God wasn't only helping us get somewhere.

Through Jesus Christ, He was helping us become someone.

Believing Christ

I sometimes hear Christians say, “I am ready to fight for what I believe.”

Fight for truth.

Fight for righteousness.

Fight for God.

There is something stirring about that language. Scripture itself contains the imagery of soldiers and armor. Paul tells us to put on “the whole armour of God.” We sing hymns about Christian soldiers and spiritual battles.

But lately I have wondered whether we spend enough time asking what kind of battle Christ actually taught us to fight.

Because when I look carefully at His life, I find remarkably little that resembles the angry, combative Christianity we sometimes call “fighting for the truth.”

Jesus certainly was not passive. He confronted hypocrisy. He condemned exploitation. He challenged religious authorities. He overturned tables in the temple.

But even that remarkable moment is worth noticing carefully. Christ did not assemble His disciples into an army. He did not teach them to hate the people on the other side of the tables.

When Peter later drew an actual sword in Christ’s defense, Jesus told him to put it away. Then He healed the wound Peter had inflicted. See Matthew 26:51–52 and Luke 22:50–51.

That may tell us something important about the kind of kingdom Christ came to establish.

His revolution looked different.

“Blessed are the meek.”

“Blessed are the merciful.”

“Blessed are the peacemakers.”

“Love your enemies.”

“Do good to them that hate you.”

“Pray for them which despitefully use you.”

When His disciples wanted to call fire down from heaven upon people who had rejected Him, Christ rebuked them. See Luke 9:51–56.

When a woman was dragged before Him to be condemned, He dispersed her accusers without throwing a stone.

When people were hungry after listening to Him teach, He fed them.

When someone was sick, He healed.

When someone was excluded, He approached.

When someone was considered unclean, He touched.

When someone was despised because of where he came from, Christ made a Samaritan the hero of the story.

And when He described the final judgment in Matthew 25, He gave us an extraordinary way of understanding our treatment of one another:

“Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.”

We understandably love applying that scripture to kindness.

When I feed someone who is hungry, I am feeding Christ.

When I clothe someone who needs clothing, I am clothing Christ.

When I visit someone who is lonely, I am visiting Christ.

But I wonder whether we sometimes forget that the principle has another side.

If the person before me can stand in the place of Christ when I serve them, what happens when I humiliate them?

What happens when I ridicule them?

What happens when I decide that their politics, poverty, nationality, mistakes, doubts, appearance, education, religion, or lack of religion makes them beneath my compassion?

If Christ asks me to see His face in “the least of these,” I do not get to decide that the principle applies only when I am being charitable.

That changes the meaning of fighting for Christ.

Paul’s description of the armor of God is especially interesting in that light. Our struggle, he says, is “not against flesh and blood.” See Ephesians 6:12.

Look at the armor he gives us.

Truth.

Righteousness.

The gospel of peace.

Faith.

Salvation.

And the word of God.

There is no armor of contempt.

No breastplate of outrage.

No helmet of superiority.

No sword of humiliating the unbeliever.

The people around us are not the enemy.

President Russell M. Nelson taught this with remarkable directness when he said that “true disciples of Jesus Christ are peacemakers.” He has warned that contention does not come from Christ and asked disciples to replace belligerence with persuasion, animosity with understanding, and contention with peace.

That does not require abandoning truth.

It may require something considerably harder:

Speaking truth without abandoning Christ.

There is an important difference.

We can become so determined to defend Christianity that we begin violating Christianity in its defense.

I felt that personally when I visited Istanbul and walked through Hagia Sophia.

I knew some of its history before I went, but knowing history and standing inside it are different things.

In 1204, soldiers of the Fourth Crusade attacked Constantinople. But Constantinople was not a Muslim city. It was Christian. Hagia Sophia was Christian. The people worshipping there were Christian.

And Christian crusaders sacked it anyway.

They looted churches and carried away sacred objects, relics, gold, silver, and other treasures. Standing inside Hagia Sophia and looking at the remnants of its extraordinary Christian mosaics, some made with gold, broke my heart. These were images depicting a faith sacred to me, in a Christian holy place that had been plundered by other Christians who believed themselves to be fighting a holy cause.

Centuries later, the Ottoman Turks conquered Constantinople and converted Hagia Sophia into a mosque. Christian images were covered as the building was adapted for Islamic worship, and ironically that covering helped portions of those ancient mosaics survive to be uncovered centuries later.

Standing there, the contradiction was difficult for me to escape.

People whom Christians had called heathens became part of the long history through which this magnificent Christian building and some of its sacred artwork survived. Meanwhile, Christians had once entered that same city under the banner of a holy cause and carried its treasures away.

I do not pretend to know the heart of every Crusader. Some undoubtedly believed their cause was righteous. Others were motivated by politics, wealth, power, obligation, adventure, or some mixture of all of them.

And perhaps that is precisely why the story troubles me.

How easy is it to decide that because my cause is righteous, my actions must therefore be righteous too?

How easy is it to decide that because I possess the truth, whatever I do in defense of that truth becomes justified?

A person can carry the banner of Christ while behaving in a way that bears remarkably little resemblance to Christ.

Before I decide that God needs me to fight His enemies, I had better be extraordinarily careful that I have not simply decided that my enemies are God’s.

Peter thought he was defending Jesus when he drew his sword.

Jesus told him to put it away.

And then Christ healed the man Peter had wounded.

One disciple believed he was fighting for Christ.

Christ was busy healing the wound His disciple had made.

That image stays with me.

President Dallin H. Oaks has similarly taught that followers of Christ must reject the anger and hatred with which political differences are so often debated. Christ’s command was not merely to tolerate our enemies.

It was to love them.

That is considerably more demanding.

King Benjamin taught the same pattern centuries before Christ’s mortal ministry. After spending his life in the service of his people, he refused to make that service evidence of his superiority. Instead he asked:

“Are we not all beggars?” See Mosiah 4:19.

That question leaves very little room for spiritual aristocracy.

Those of us born into the Church should especially remember that.

Being born into a heritage of faith is a blessing.

It is not an accomplishment.

I cannot claim my ancestors’ sacrifices as evidence of my own righteousness any more than I can be condemned for Adam’s transgression.

Our second Article of Faith says that we believe people will be punished for their own sins and not Adam’s transgression.

Surely the inverse deserves consideration too:

Other people’s righteousness does not automatically become mine.

If my ancestors crossed plains, buried loved ones, built communities, sacrificed possessions, and endured persecution for their faith, those are their offerings to God.

My responsibility is to decide what I will offer Him.

And perhaps someone who encounters the gospel without generations of family tradition behind them and chooses Christ at great personal cost deserves not our condescension but our admiration.

They may be the pioneer.

We may simply be living in the house the pioneers built.

The Savior repeatedly overturned assumptions about who was closest to God.

The priest and Levite had religious standing.

The Samaritan stopped.

And Christ asked which one had been the neighbor.

The answer wasn’t the person with the superior religious pedigree.

It was the person who showed mercy.

Perhaps that is why discipleship cannot merely mean believing in Jesus Christ.

We must also believe Him.

Believe Him when He says the meek will inherit the earth.

Believe Him when He says blessed are the merciful.

Believe Him when He says blessed are the peacemakers.

Believe Him when He tells us to love our enemies.

Believe Him when He tells us not to condemn.

Believe Him when He places Himself among the hungry, the stranger, the sick, the imprisoned, and the forgotten.

Believe Him when He says that the greatest among us should become the servant.

Believe Him even when those teachings collide with our politics, our pride, our tribe, our anger, or our certainty that this particular person deserves something less than mercy.

There are truths worth defending.

There are injustices that require courage to confront.

There are moments when disciples of Christ must stand firmly and say, “This is wrong.”

But perhaps the question is not simply whether we are willing to fight for Christ.

Perhaps the harder question is:

Are we willing to fight our own anger for Christ?

Our pride?

Our prejudice?

Our appetite for retaliation?

Our need to win?

Our temptation to divide God’s children into us and them?

Because the great battle described by the gospel may not be a battle against the people standing across from us.

It may be the battle within us that determines whether, when we encounter them, they encounter Christ.

A broken heart.

A contrite spirit.

Hands willing to serve.

Courage sufficient to forgive.

Conviction strong enough that it does not require cruelty to sustain it.

Truth spoken with love.

Strength disciplined by mercy.

Perhaps that is what it means to take upon ourselves the name of Christ.

Not merely to believe in Him.

But to believe Him.

Line Upon Line: Seeing God’s Work Through a 3D Printer

There’s a phrase in scripture that Latter-day Saints hear often: “line upon line, precept upon precept.” We usually think of that phrase as describing how we learn the gospel. Knowledge and understanding come slowly, layer by layer. But recently, while watching a 3D printer quietly building something on my workbench, I started wondering if the metaphor might run deeper than that. Maybe it doesn’t just describe how we learn. Maybe it also describes how God builds us.

Anyone who has spent time around a 3D printer knows the strange fascination of watching it work. At first nothing looks impressive. A nozzle moves back and forth across a build plate, laying down thin lines of molten plastic. It doesn’t look like much. Just lines. Then another layer appears. And another. Eventually the shape begins to emerge, and suddenly what looked random starts to look intentional.

That process reminds me of Isaiah 28:10: “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line.” God rarely changes us all at once. Instead He builds patiently, layer by layer.

As someone who spends a lot of time with 3D printers, I know how complicated that process actually is. For a print to succeed, the temperature has to be right. The flow rate has to be correct. The build plate has to be leveled. The speed of the nozzle must match the material. The machine moves along three axes—X, Y, and Z—coordinating thousands of tiny movements. All of those movements are written into lines of machine code that tell the motors exactly when to move and where.

To someone watching from across the room, it might look simple. But the maker knows the enormous complexity behind every layer.

In many ways, that’s what life feels like. We experience only the small area right around us. We can’t see the entire blueprint of what God is building. Isaiah reminds us why: “For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord” (Isaiah 55:8–9). The Maker sees the full design. We see only the layer we are living in.

Another thing anyone who prints complex models understands is the need for supports. Some parts of a model can’t just be printed into empty air. They need temporary structures that hold them in place while the real object forms.

Those supports aren’t the final product. In fact, they’re often removed when the print is finished. But without them, the object would collapse.

I’ve come to believe that many moments in our lives are like that. Sometimes we are the structure being built. Other times we are the support holding something steady for someone else.

King Benjamin taught: “When ye are in the service of your fellow beings ye are only in the service of your God” (Mosiah 2:17). We may not always understand the role we are playing in the moment. But sometimes our ministry is simply being present while someone else’s life is taking shape.

I’ve seen that principle in my own life in unexpected ways. As a father and now a grandfather, many of the most meaningful moments have come in quiet acts of support—helping a child learn something, sharing a skill, or simply being there when someone needs encouragement.

I’ve also experienced that lesson through running. When I first started training seriously again, progress came slowly. Each run felt like just another small effort. But week after week those small efforts built on each other until I realized I could do things I hadn’t thought possible before.

The same has been true in creative work. Writing, music, building, even 3D printing—none of it happens all at once. Every meaningful project is built layer upon layer.

Elder John C. Pingree Jr. taught that the Lord tells each of us: “I have a work for thee.” That work doesn’t always look dramatic. Often it looks like small acts of service, quiet encouragement, or using the skills and experiences we already have to bless someone else.

Doctrine and Covenants 58:27 teaches us to be “anxiously engaged in a good cause.” We may not know the full blueprint of God’s design, but we can participate in the layer we are currently living.

The perfect example of fulfilling divine work is Jesus Christ. Near the end of His mortal life, the Savior prayed: “I have glorified thee on the earth: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do” (John 17:4).

Our missions are not the same as His, but the pattern is similar. We learn. We grow. We serve. Layer by layer we become something new.

In 3D printing, the object and the process are inseparable. The final form only exists because thousands of small lines were placed carefully over time.

Discipleship works the same way. Faith grows line upon line. Character develops line upon line. Christlike love is learned line upon line.

And although we cannot yet see the finished design, we can trust the Master Maker who does.

One day we may finally see the design from above and understand why certain layers were placed where they were. Until then, our responsibility is simple: keep building, keep learning, keep serving—and trust the Builder.

When Concern Gets Dismissed

When Concern Gets Dismissed

Last September I tried to have a conversation with Tina’s siblings about two things that felt increasingly urgent:

Her mother’s memory loss.

Her father’s ability to be a safe, appropriate caregiver.

This wasn’t about blame. It wasn’t about finances. It wasn’t about control. It was about safety, decline, and the reality that two aging people might need more support than they were getting.

The response that has stayed with me the most came from Tina’s second oldest brother, the one often treated as the “golden child.”

At first, he acknowledged something real.

He said he understood the toll Tina’s father’s behavior had taken on those who married into the family.

That sounded empathetic.

But the more I replay it, the more it feels like what he was really saying was that we were weak. Including his own wife. As if the problem wasn’t the behavior itself, but our inability to tolerate it.

Then he shifted into explaining his father’s behavior away.

“It’s just his low self-esteem.”

Maybe that’s true. But acknowledging dysfunction isn’t an argument for leaving someone in a caregiving role. It’s an argument for the opposite.

Then he pivoted to finances, as if money were the core issue. He assured everyone that he and the oldest brother had the estate under control.

Finances were never the concern.

Safety was.

Function was.

Capacity was.

Then he minimized Tina’s mother’s condition by suggesting she just needed to “get out more.”

I still don’t know what he meant that would fix.

Did he think activity would reverse memory decline?

Did he think time away from her husband would solve something?

Did he think this was temporary confusion instead of progression?

Either way, the logistics alone make the suggestion unrealistic.

Getting someone out daily for enough time to matter would require multiple hours every day.

The oldest brother is already carrying significant responsibility. Their parents literally live in an adjoining apartment to his home. Adding more to his plate isn’t reasonable.

His wife had already tried to get Tina’s mother out socially with little success. And even if activity helps mood, it does not stop neurodegenerative decline. We have direct family evidence of that.

Then came the part that still burns.

He suggested that “those who live close” should take responsibility for getting their mother out regularly.

That statement collapses under even basic reality.

The youngest sister lives nearby but is in a volatile marriage. Her husband has made threats against the oldest brother and his family. There is a restraining order involved. Relying on her creates risk for everyone.

The next closest sibling after the oldest brother was Tina’s sister who had just died after four years of pancreatic cancer. She wasn’t even included in the group chat for obvious reasons. Said sibling lives over an hour away. That would mean more than two hours of driving daily, plus time spent out with their mother. Four hours a day, minimum, just to attempt this “solution.”

Which leaves us.

My family.

And if he meant Tina specifically, then the math becomes almost cruel.

Tina works six 12-hour shifts most weeks. Sometimes five 12s and an 8. A 12-hour shift is really 12.5 because of report time. She has a one-hour commute each way.

If she stopped after work to spend time with her mother:

1 hour from work to parents.

1.5 hours out with her mother.

Nearly 2 hours home with traffic.

That leaves roughly 5 hours at home before she has to sleep, eat, shower, prepare for work again, and function as a human being.

At best, she would get 3 to 3.5 hours of sleep.

That isn’t caregiving. That’s collapse.

The only alternatives would be Tina moving in with her parents, which neither of us will agree to, or her body forcing the issue through exhaustion within weeks.

What makes this harder is that this brother knows the damage his father’s behavior can cause. He deliberately chose jobs that kept distance between his own family and his parents to protect his wife’s mental health.

That was wise.

That was protective.

That was love.

But somehow he didn’t extend that same protection to his sister.

Then came the statement that hurt the most:

“If we just loved Dad more, things would be okay.”

I do love him.

That’s why I’m concerned.

Love does not mean ignoring neglect.

Love does not mean pretending laundry, cleaning, and daily function are happening when they aren’t.

Love does not mean accepting yelling at a cognitively declining spouse as normal frustration.

Love does not mean leaving someone in a role they can’t safely perform.

After that conversation, I blocked most of the family again on my phone and social media.

That wasn’t impulsive. It wasn’t dramatic. It was survival.

Years ago I had already learned that distance was necessary for my own mental health. I reopened those doors for one reason only: concern. I was willing to risk my stability to try to start a real conversation about what was happening to Tina’s parents.

I reversed boundaries that existed for a reason.

And one response shut the entire thing down.

One response.

The moment the “golden child” spoke, everyone else went quiet. No questions. No problem-solving. No curiosity. Just a return to the familiar family posture: status quo, head in the sand, don’t upset Dad, don’t acknowledge decline, don’t confront reality.

Conversation over.

That silence told me everything.

It told me that protecting comfort mattered more than protecting people.

It told me that denial was still the organizing principle.

It told me that the emotional hierarchy hadn’t changed.

So I closed the doors again.

Because I am not required to sacrifice my mental health on the altar of someone else’s denial.

I am not required to expose myself to harm to prove I care.

I am not required to participate in a system that punishes honesty and rewards avoidance.

And the truth is, my distance was never indifference.

For years, while staying out of the blast radius for my own survival, I still tried to contribute quietly.

I digitized Tina’s childhood photos and made them available to the family through her Google Drive without anyone knowing it was me.

I digitized videos of her maternal grandmother. One was created by her church community when her health declined and Tina’s parents brought her to Utah for better care. Another was of her grandmother talking about her trip overseas when she was young and single.

That grandmother was active. Social. Engaged outside the home.

She still declined.

I worried those memories would be lost if someone didn’t preserve them.

Tina’s mother had given us a VHS copy years ago. I assumed everyone had one. They didn’t. No one even remembered the videos existed until they appeared digitally. Not even Tina’s mother.

I never said I did it.

Because I knew how it would go.

Because Tina’s father has criticized nearly everything I’ve done since the day I married his daughter.

So I stayed invisible.

I contributed without credit.

I helped without acknowledgment.

I loved from a distance because that was the only safe way to do it.

Which is why it hurt so much to be treated as if I didn’t understand, didn’t care, or needed to “love more.”

I have loved.

I have shown up in the only ways I safely could.

I took a risk that day. A real one. I stepped back into dynamics that have hurt me before because I believed concern for vulnerable people might finally matter enough to override the old patterns.

It didn’t.

And that realization hurt more than I expected.

It felt like I risked my mind for nothing.

But the truth is, it wasn’t nothing.

I spoke.

I named what I saw.

I advocated for people who may not be able to advocate for themselves.

The outcome was not what I hoped for, but the action still matters.

Sometimes the only thing you control in a broken system is whether you participate in the denial.

I chose not to.

And I will not apologize for protecting my own mental health when the system refuses to protect anyone else.

Denial is comfortable.

Reality is coming anyway.

Children and their wide eyed optimism that allows them to suspend reality and how we lose it. An open letter to Fandoms.

 Fandoms have played a huge role in my life, shaping the way I view storytelling, heroism, and the human experience. Of all the fandoms I love, Star Wars is at the very top of the list. George Lucas created those original movies with children in mind, but he crafted them in a way that adults could also enjoy and learn from. He used the hero’s journey, a storytelling structure that has appeared throughout human history, borrowing influences from Japanese cinema, classic science fiction, fantasy, and even Greek epics. The story of Luke Skywalker follows this age-old path: the student discovering himself, finding a mentor, losing that mentor, and ultimately facing the ultimate test.

But Star Wars also explores the idea that heroes fall. Anakin Skywalker was once a hero before he became Darth Vader. The prequels expanded on this idea, showing how his fall was driven by fear, loss, and manipulation. Even Obi-Wan Kenobi experiences a form of downfall—not to evil, but to despair. By the time we see him in A New Hope, he has shut himself off from the world. Not just to protect Luke, but because of the overwhelming grief of losing Anakin, his brother in arms. The pain he feels is reminiscent of other legendary betrayals, like King Arthur and Lancelot.

This theme of flawed heroes extends beyond Star Wars. Comic books, particularly Marvel comics, are filled with characters who struggle with their own shortcomings. Even Superman, the quintessential Boy Scout, has faced moral dilemmas, has fallen, and even died before being brought back. Marvel’s heroes, in particular, feel more like real people—individuals who happen to have extraordinary abilities but still deal with personal battles. Their masks and costumes serve a purpose beyond theatrics; they separate their personal lives from their responsibilities, much like real-world heroes do. Police officers, firefighters, and military personnel all wear uniforms that symbolize their duty, yet they also have personal lives they must protect and balance.

Another fandom I hold dear is Star Trek. My favorite iteration is Deep Space Nine, and nobody can beat Avery Brooks as Captain Sisko. He brought an incredible passion to the role, and the show tackled issues of social justice, discrimination, and the cost of maintaining a utopian society. Star Trek, in all its iterations, has always pushed boundaries, presenting a future where humanity has moved beyond its worst tendencies—but not without struggle. Even in a utopian world, there are forces that threaten to tear it down, whether from within or from the outside. It’s a reminder that achieving a just society isn’t the end of the fight—you have to work to maintain it.

Fantasy is another love of mine, and few stories embody the hero’s journey better than The Lord of the Rings. Tolkien, first and foremost a linguist, created his world as an experiment in how language evolves with culture. But in doing so, he also crafted an epic that reflects the darkness of the world. His experiences in the trenches of World War I shaped the way he portrayed war—not just as a battlefield struggle, but as a weight that crushes entire civilizations. Though he was adamant that his work was not allegorical, the themes of war, loss, and perseverance are woven into every part of his stories.

His friend, C.S. Lewis, took a different approach with The Chronicles of Narnia. Lewis embraced allegory, weaving Christian themes throughout his works. When asked why his children’s books contained dark and terrifying elements, he explained that children need to know that there are monsters in the world—but more importantly, that those monsters can be defeated. Stories like these don’t just entertain; they help us process the real fears we face in life and give us hope that good can prevail.

Of course, fandoms aren’t without their conflicts. Star Wars, in particular, has seen intense division among fans. Every time a new trilogy is released, there’s an uproar. Some fans want the experience to feel exactly like the original trilogy did when they were kids, but that sense of innocence can never truly be recaptured. The prequels, for example, were criticized for focusing too much on CGI and effects, losing some of the raw storytelling that made the originals so compelling. When Disney took over, the sequels were met with backlash for different reasons. The Force Awakens was called too derivative, even though it was meant as an homage. And then The Last Jedi caused an even bigger rift, with its portrayal of Luke Skywalker as a broken man who had lost faith in the Jedi.

To me, that was one of the most realistic and moving aspects of the new trilogy. Heroes fall—not always to darkness, but sometimes to despair. Luke’s disillusionment wasn’t a betrayal of his character; it was a reflection of what happens when people carry the weight of the world for too long. His journey back to hope was just as important as his original rise to heroism. I relate to this personally, as I have struggled with depression, anxiety, and ADHD. There have been times when I’ve withdrawn completely, overwhelmed by the burdens of responsibility and self-doubt. But even in those moments of isolation, there’s always been something that has pulled me back—whether it’s my family, my love of storytelling, or the realization that even a small step forward is still progress.

Going back to school as a 40-year-old was one of those moments for me. I didn’t just do it for a degree; I did it to show my kids how to succeed, even when it’s hard. It wasn’t without pain or deep anxiety-fueled depression, but I endured because I wanted them to see that perseverance matters. And just like the heroes in these stories, I’ve learned that coming back, even for a moment, can make all the difference—not just for myself, but for those watching and looking for their own hope.

Fandoms are passionate spaces, and sometimes that passion leads to division. But at their core, these stories exist to inspire us, to challenge us, and to give us a glimpse of something greater than ourselves. Whether it’s a farm boy from Tatooine, a Vulcan exploring the stars, or a hobbit carrying a burden too great for anyone to bear, these characters remind us of our own journeys. And as long as stories continue to be told, as long as light still shines, there will always be hope.

Firebreaks

It's starting to make sense. 

"Where there's smoke there's fire." 

Every day is a battle to feed and grow the forest of my life and friends.  Remove the excess dead standing and fallen trees.  Keep the accessible paths open and discourage people from tramping on the parts of me that need to remain wild and pristine. 

I'm a forest ranger conservationist. 

Then I see it.  Smoke. 

I'm not a good fireman.  I'm a conservationist.  I try to call it in.  But for me, the response time is never good enough.  So I find the nearest tool and try to build a firebreak.  A controlled burn, a Bulldozer, Napalm.  I'm not a fireman.  I just try to keep the fire away from the one thing I can't do without.  My kids.  My wife.  I can give up everything else in this world but I can't let the fire consume that too.  But I'm not a fireman.

Usually, I don't get so much destroyed that I can't rebuild.  But sometimes.  Damn it.  I hate it too.  So there I stand in the wasteland between what I hold dear and what I'm trying to build and trying to find a swathe of green that I somehow missed.  An olive tree that bent but didn't break.  Maybe the creatures will come back.  I can only find what's left and start planting again.  Maybe the new pathway will go here and we'll let the old one overgrow.