I had a conversation with a friend recently while working on our house that really made me ponder. We were talking about the LDS pioneers, and how, after building their beautiful city of Nauvoo (not to mention their temple) most of them up and left due to intense persecution. They had built their homes with their bare hands, and I dare say it went a smigeon slower for them than has gone for us. Every timber hand planed...every brick hand formed...finish work hand carved... it is hard for me to comprehend (and I'm overwhelmed as it is with my "easy" project so I can't think about it too much).
I've heard those stories hundreds of times over the course of my life, but it never really resonated until this conversation. With everything I have gone through along with my family to "build" our house, if the word came tomorrow that I was to just walk away...financial obligations in tow...would I??? I used to 100% know that I would. More recently, I hoped that I would. Now, I just hope I never have to find out :)
It's funny how the very experiences that can/should refine us, also seem to build this crusty layer over the innocence we had as children, turning us into cynical trustless faithless self-protecting robots. To me, that cynicism is an almost inevitable side effect from being mortal ("the natural man"). The funny thing is that, through the atonement, we then are supposed to chip that crusty layer away by becoming humble through prayer, fasting, scripture study and on and on, "...to become as little children," as it is happening to us. Talk about a paradox! This stuff made so much more sense when I was little :)
1 comment:
These moments we have as adults that make us think are just the tip of the iceberg. I am reading "approaching Zion" by Hugh Nibley, it makes me more suicidal than spencer kimball's "miracle of forgiveness". We are so far off the right way we should be living it isn't even funny.
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