Latter-Day Ain'ts

A couple of weeks ago, someone I follow on social media told of how she'd once been in a rap battle with a Mormon missionary and dropped a line something like "More like Latter-day Ain'ts". It wasn't mean-spirited or anything like that. It was meant to be a funny slice of life moment, and most people took it as such.

Like most of her posts, this one generated a wide spectrum of comments. Most were harmless and even amusing. Some of them were uncomplimentary towards the LDS community; a few even questioned what a self-professed Christian was doing associating with Mormon missionaries in the first place.

You know, same old same old.

The phrase "Latter-day Ain'ts" got me thinking. I can't speak for anyone else, but here are some of my personal "Latter-day Ain'ts".

——

Ain't claiming to be perfect. I do the best I know how, and with the inspiration of Heaven, I try to be a better person today than I was yesterday.

Ain't telling you that my church is better than yours. But we do have a perspective that you may not have considered.

Ain't trying to be like other Christians, because that's not the point. The point is to be more like Christ, to the extent that I can learn and do what that involves.

Ain't here to judge you. That's not my job. I'm here to love you and to help you when you need help, because that's what the One I'm pledged to follow would do.

Ain't a blind follower. My beliefs and my convictions are my own, hard-won through study, meditation, prayer, and a lot of personal experience. I'm not a novice, and my faith is not fragile.

Ain't just checking boxes. I don't avoid alcohol, drugs, tobacco, casual sex, gambling, and the rest just because my church tells me to. I do it because experience—mine and others'—tells me those things don't make my life happier and don't make me a better person.

Ain't interested in anti-Mormon rhetoric. I was a missionary in the Bible Belt. You really think you know something I haven't heard and debunked a dozen times over? You don't. Don't waste my time, or yours.

Ain't expecting freedom from trials and tribulations. The idea that following Christ leads to an easy life is baffling to me. It certainly wasn't easy for Him. It's the hard times that make us stronger, not the easy ones. Learning to overcome hard times is the whole reason we're here.

Ain't complacent. I don't believe that God sent me here to be who I am, but to grow into who He knows I can become. Exaltation is a process, not an event.

Ain't going to try to justify myself to anyone. People may not agree with my opinions, my positions, or the way I live my life, and that's fine. I'm not accountable to them.

And finally, Ain't concerned about the fires of Hell, because like Nephi of old, I know in Whom I have trusted.

I think that pretty well covers it.

The Donkey and The Tiger

 "The grass is blue!" shouted the donkey.

"No, the grass is green," replied the tiger.

"It is not! It's blue! It's obviously blue! I can't believe you could think it's green!"

"Nevertheless, the grass is green," replied the tiger.

And so the argument went on, until the donkey demanded they take the matter up with the Lion, the Judge and King of the Jungle. 

Brought before the Lion, the donkey pleaded his case. "Oh great and wise Lion, is the grass not, in fact, blue?"

"As you say," said the Lion.

"The tiger contradicts and embarrasses me! Will you not punish him for his disrespect?"

"Very well," replied the Lion. "The tiger will spend a week in silence."

"Yes! Finally! Thank you!" And the donkey went noisily on his way.

"You will accept your punishment?" asked the Lion.

"I will," replied the tiger. "But I must ask why I am being punished, as the grass really is green."

"Your punishment has nothing to do with the color of the grass," said the Lion.

"Then why?"

"Because it is not proper for an intelligent, reasonable creature like you to allow yourself to be caught up in the arguments of a jackass, and less so that you would then involve me in the problem as well."

The Lion's voice then softened. "There are some creatures who will not respond to logic and reason. They do not seek for the truth; they only seek their own satisfaction. You will never convince them with facts, because their convictions are independent of reality. You cannot win an argument with them, because they are incapable of admitting there is anything they do not know.

"In the face of such creatures, the only effective response is silence. Take a week and remind yourself what that sounds like. Your life will be happier, and your mind will be at peace."

The tiger bowed his head in respect. "You are wise, my King. Thank you."

Tomorrow, It Could Be Me

For those who need clarification: This has to do with the most recent mass shooting. A school shooting ... or maybe I should say, another school shooting. This time it's an elementary school in Texas. Is my school next? You can't be in my profession and not think about things like that.

So what do we do about it? Nothing. Not. One. Damned. Thing. Nothing ever changes. Nothing ever gets done. We have the capacity to make real changes. But we don't have the will. We won't take simple, proven, common sense steps to cut down on mass shootings because ... reasons. Honestly, I don't know why.

Actually, I do know why. Because there are too many people who value "Rights" in the abstract without any consideration of concrete consequences. Too many organ grinders singing the halcyon song of "GUNS=FREEDOM!!!1!" and too many monkeys who follow because it never occurs to them that they don't have to. Too many moral absolutists who think any kind of gun legislation is a slippery slope to a dystopian Socialist police state. Too many who, in their heart of hearts, doesn't see any of this as a problem because nothing bad happens to them.

And let's not forget the corporations and political organizations who have too much to lose if the status quo changes even a little bit.

So what do we offer? "Thought and Prayers™". Because it's all we've got. We call upon God to save us, because it is inconceivable to us that we might have the capacity to save ourselves. 

We could. But we won't.

The problem is that God, in my experience, has never promised to save us in spite of ourselves. In His wisdom, God never solves for us problems that we have the capacity to solve for ourselves. He may move mountains for us if the need arises ... but in most cases, He hands us a shovel and moves us to start digging.

"Thoughts and Prayers™" are not the solution to the current and ongoing problem of mass shootings. God won't wash the blood from our collective hands if we won't even turn on the water.

...And the Truth Shall Make You Free

 I was reminded of a couple of quotes today:

“One of the saddest lessons of history is this: If we’ve been bamboozled long enough, we tend to reject any evidence of the bamboozle. We’re no longer interested in finding out the truth. The bamboozle has captured us. It’s simply too painful to acknowledge, even to ourselves, that we’ve been taken. Once you give a charlatan power over you, you almost never get it back.” ― Carl Sagan, The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark

“People are stupid; given proper motivation, almost anyone will believe almost anything. Because people are stupid, they will believe a lie because they want to believe it's true, or because they are afraid it might be true. People’s heads are full of knowledge, facts, and beliefs, and most of it is false, yet they think it all true. People are stupid; they can only rarely tell the difference between a lie and the truth, and yet they are confident they can, and so are all the easier to fool.” ― Terry Goodkind, Wizard's First Rule

I believe that the truth does have the power to make us free, but only if we are willing to accept it and to act on it.

Would that more of us would do so. Or could do so.

Twenty Years, And For What?

 I've read a lot in the last few days about how the terrorist attacks of September 11th changed our country. About how they brought us together. About how, at least for a time, it didn't matter if we were Republicans or Democrats, black or white, rich or poor, it only mattered that we were all united as Americans.

I wish I could agree with that sentiment.

Yes, it was like that for a while. For a short time, we temporarily put aside our competing agendas and our animosity in the face of something that threatened all of us, regardless of who we were. For a while, we were all proud to be Americans. If only it could have lasted.

It didn't take long for the paranoia to erupt. Prejudice, animosity, and outright hatred against people from the Middle East (and even people who just looked like them) reared its ugly head in short order. We now had an enemy against whom to vent our anger. Nothing unites America like a  "Them" for "Us" to oppose.

Unscrupulous leaders fanned the flames of this anger into open violent conflict. Driven by our collective need to avenge ourselves of our dead, Congress and the White House plunged the nation headlong into a war of revenge that somehow blossomed into two wars of revenge. Over the intervening twenty years, profiteers in government and industry have made millions, while thousands of young Americans have died in the mountains and deserts half a world away from home.

When we realized just how badly we had been hoodwinked, we just became angrier. But now, instead of uniting us against a common foe, our anger led us to fight with each other on a scale not seen for decades.

There was a time, believe it or not, when Republicans and Democrats could disagree without becoming disagreeable. Those days are long gone. Disagreement led to animosity which led to finger pointing which led to name calling which led to the current political climate. Our so-called leaders from opposing parties no longer talk to each other. They shout at each other, and the louder they shout and the more vitriol they hurl at the other side, the more successful they are and the more loyal their supporters become. People from the other Party are no longer Americans, or even the loyal opposition. They are enemies and traitors. 

 E pluribus unum? From many, one? That hasn't been true for a long time.

Even in the midst of a global pandemic, the worst outbreak of disease this planet has seen in a century, all we can do in the United States is yell at each other over how we've responded. COVID-19 presents a greater threat to most Americans than the Taliban ever did, but we won't take the steps necessary to eliminate it because it interferes with our political loyalties. Our politics have literally become more important than our lives, or the lives of our neighbors.

In the midst of such division, I see little hope for the United States of America. We are no longer one nation, under God or otherwise. We are no longer one people. We have let 20 years of anger and mistrust and name calling turn us against one another, so that our tribal loyalties mean more to us than the future of our country. 

Make no mistake, neither side holds all the answers. If we as a nation are to turn this thing around, we have to learn to listen to each other again. We have to stop whitewashing our own sins while loudly advertising the sins of the other side. We have to commit ourselves to a path that leads to liberty and justice for all, not just the ones who happen to agree with us.

Yeah, I don't see that happening.

When the Taliban launched the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001, their goal was to undermine America, or even destroy it if they could. All in all, I'd have to say they've done a pretty damn good job of it.

Klingons. Why Did It Have To Be Klingons?

In my dream, I was a Starfleet officer in command of a small unit serving aboard a Klingon battle cruiser. The Executive Office took a disliking to us (or maybe just me) and began calling my unit out for pointless “emergency” drills 20 or 30 minutes before we were scheduled to wake up. I tried to talk to him about it, and he told me that Klingon warriors were always ready for battle on a moment’s notice, and that if we were to serve on his ship, we needed to be ready as well. 

Well, after the third or fourth time, I’d had enough. I told my crew that if it happened again, they were not, under any circumstances, to report for duty until I ordered them to do so. They agreed. Sure enough, two or three days later, the XO called for us to report well before our scheduled duty shift.

I was ready. I had already awakened and dressed, and I was on the bridge about 90 seconds after the call came in. The XO asked where the rest of my team was, and I looked around the bridge and responded that there was no need for them to be here, as there was no emergency to be found. He didn’t like that answer. That didn’t stop me. I then proceeded to tell him that this kind of passive-aggressive nonsense was the sort of thing I’d expect from a Romulan bureaucrat, not a Klingon warrior. I then also suggested that his mother probably consorted with Cardassians, or that she might even be a Cardassian herself.

That did it. He drew a knife and charged me.

In a stunning display of grace and expertise—the surest sign that all of this was nothing but a dream—I blocked his initial thrust and then executed a perfect disarm maneuver. He stood there enraged, staring at his knife in my hand. I turned away from him and walked over to the Captain, giving him the knife and asking him to hold on to it, as his First Officer might eventually want it back. The XO came at me again. I continued to block and dodge his clumsy strikes until I was able to maneuver him into a control panel headfirst. He fell in a shower of sparks, rising unsteadily to his feet only after a few moments.

As he stood there, I loudly reaffirmed the loyalty of myself and my unit to him, to the Captain, and to the ship. I furthermore informed him that if he ever pulled this kind of targs**t again, he’d have a real emergency on his hands as he found himself floating back to Qo'noS in an escape pod. I excused myself from the bridge and went back to my barracks to wake up my unit. We reported for duty exactly on time.

The XO found me in the mess hall later. He had another knife—one he said was for me. He insisted that my unit and I share a bottle of bloodwine with him. It wasn’t the 2309, but it wasn’t bad.

(The fact that this dream woke me up 20 minutes before my alarm on my first day back to school probably means something, but I don’t want to think too hard about what.)

Big Red and the Wall of Doom

One summer in my early twenties, I was a counselor at a summer camp for gifted and talented youth. One of our activities was a high ropes course, and the group of kids I was shepherding was directed to our first feature: the climbing wall. It was eighteen or twenty feet tall and straight vertical. It was big, it was imposing, and nobody wanted to be the first to attempt it.

Until Big Red stepped up. 

Big Red was a student I already knew, because our families were friends. Her mom was the psychologist at the middle school where my Mom was a teacher. I’d known Big Red for years. That wasn’t her real name, of course. She’d got the nickname because she had long, curly red hair--and she stood about five-foot-nothing. She was tiny by any objective measure, but her smile and her heart were anything but.

So after a moment or two, Big Red came forward. She hooked the guide rope to her harness, approached the wall, and began climbing. She climbed like there was nothing to stop her--and there wasn’t. She reached the top in about 30 seconds. 

And then everything changed. All of a sudden, everyone wanted a shot at the wall. The other students all seemed to think, “Hey, if she can do it, why not me?” It was as if she had given the rest of us permission to dare the wall. And we did.

As you go about the activities of your day, completing your daily goals and defeating your daily monsters, you may not even be aware of the people around you. They have goals and monsters of their own, and seeing you conquer yours may just give them the strength they need to conquer theirs. All they need is to be shown the way to begin, to see that it is possible.

By doing what you do, steadily and faithfully, you may be somebody’s Big Red.

And you don’t need to be exceptional to do it. Success, I have found, is not a matter of gifts or talents, but of will. If you have the will, you can find the way.

So don’t give up. Do what you need to do--little things, mundane things, unremarkable things. In so doing, you might just be giving someone else the strength to do the same.