Life's Lesson

I have ADD (or ADHD or whatever they've chosen to call it these days). I don't know if that is what contributes to mood swings or if that is some other ailment. What I do know is that I've always been sensitive about things. And I have (at least from talking to others) a really good memory of my childhood.

I remember a time in grade school. I was in maybe 2nd or 3rd grade at the most. They had a time in class when you could put a record onto this little record player and put on these HUGE headphones with the massive coiled wire thingy connecting them to the record player. I had listened to many story records, but one day I listened to "Ugly Duckling". I remember weeping in my little tiny plastic chair while I listened to the story. I had such a feeling of sorry for the little duckling. I remember the teacher reading to a group of kids in a small circle to my left. I was concerned about them seeing me crying, but I hadn't heard the rest of the story yet, so I wiped my face with the back of my hand and tried to stop crying. Looking back, I think this was the first time I really noticed it. I hardened my heart. I knew from the other kids in class that it wasn't "normal" to cry from merely listening to a story. And the only way I could stop was to harden my heart. Of course back then, I didn't know what I was doing.

I have always had a relatively easy time picturing how others feel about things. Putting myself mentally into their shoes. This can be both a blessing and a curse.

Another story, one I read much later in life, was from "Chicken Soup for the Soul" (a 1993 Best Seller), though I think I read it in some other book. Here is the section that utterly ripped me apart:

"Many years ago, when I worked as a volunteer at Stanford Hospital, I got to know a little girl named Liza who was suffering from a rare and serious disease. Her only chance of recovery appeared to be a blood transfusion from her five-year-old brother, who had miraculously survived the same disease and had developed the antibodies needed to combat the illness. The doctor explained the situation to her little brother, and asked the boy if he would be willing to give his blood to his sister. I saw him hesitate for only a moment before taking a deep breath and saying, 'Yes, I'll do it if it will save Liza.'

As the transfusion progressed, he lay in bed next to his sister and smiled, as we all did, seeing the color returning to her cheeks. Then his face grew pale and his smile faded. He looked up at the doctor and asked with a trembling voice, 'Will I start to die right away?'

Being young, the boy had misunderstood the doctor; he thought he was going to have to give her all his blood."

That story really (to me anyway) shows the love that we have as siblings before we "grow up". I am in NO way saying that adult siblings wouldn't be so selfless, but I think the older we are, the more we have to think about before we would make such a sacrifice.

I've been reading my way through Mosiah (I should finish it this evening in fact), but early on in my reading, I hit Chapter Four of Mosiah and made a blog post about it: here.

After I posted that, I began to think more about the repercussions mentioned. I began to think about what would happen if we knew the right path but failed to follow that path. I began to talk with my friends and with my Bishop about Mosiah Chapter Four. I learned a great deal through those discussions, and I have seen the importance of sharing the scripture questions we have with others we know. We can learn so much from others.

During those discussions, one friend in particular (Chris), mentioned two verses earlier in the same book:

Mosiah 3:18-19

"18. For behold he judgeth, and his judgment is just; and the infant perisheth not that dieth in his infancy; but men drink damnation to their own souls except they humble themselves and become as little children, and believe that salvation was, and is, and is to come, in and through the atoning blood of Christ, the Lord Omnipotent.

19. For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father."

I bolded the last section because it is very important I think. The very young do not question authority nearly as much as adults do. There is an age where we accept what our parents tell us "because". By this I mean, there is a time when we realize that we do NOT understand the WHY of our parents' requests, but we obey nonetheless.

I am absolutely not saying that we need to follow things blindly. But as adults, I think we tend to think to much sometimes. Well maybe you all don't, but I do. :)

So looking back to the section I bolded, we see how we would become as a child. We would need to be:

1. Submissive
2. Meek
3. Humble
4. Patient
5. Full of Love
6. Willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict

That list is intimidating. Who out there seeks out to be submissive? Meek?

Yet I think many would see being humble, patient, and full of love as virtuous qualities.

Why is it that society in general seems to shun these things though? Once we are an adult (and in reality, somewhere along the way BEFORE we become adults), we are taught by society to move away from these traits. I think there is more to it than simply "growing up".

To me personally, I see that list of six things as something that would be easy to attain if we were a pure hearted child, untainted by all the temptations and bad things in this world.

When I was a very young boy, still in gradeschool, I remember one occasion in which I came to respect my brother so very much. It is a memory filled with shame, but perhaps it will help to write it out.

I have a brother and a sister, both younger than me, my brother being the youngest. When we were very young, my Father was extremely strict (later in life he was merely VERY strict instead of being extremely strict...). We were always given a pile of vitamins to take every morning with breakfast and were under strict orders to take them. A few of them didn't taste particularly good, even during the brief time they'd be in my mouth. And then there was the fact that there were something like five or six of them (some of them somewhat large). I reached a point where I didn't like taking them and decided not to take them. I began hiding them each morning and later flushing them down the toilet.

One time, however, I suppose they didn't flush all the way. Dad found the remnants of a vitamin in the toilet. He immediately began the somewhat traditional interrogation that our household had become used to. He knew it had to be one of us three kids, so he interviewed us each, one by one, in front of the others. We all three denied it (yes, sadly, I lied). I knew that the repercussions of flushing the vitamins was going to be very severe. Dad had made it VERY clear that it was exceedingly important to him that we take the vitamins.

Eventually, with none of us admitting to the crime, he had us each stand in a corner. None of us were to sit or say anything. We stood in our respective corners (all in the same room) for several hours. My brother and sister (being younger) began to falter and have difficulty remaining standing. My Mother began to plead on our behalf to my Father. He would have none of it. He insisted that if it went on long enough that the guilty party would confess. I was quite resolute in not confessing. I had made my mind up that I would take the vitamins from then on, and that if he didn't ever know who had flushed them, that he would be forced to re-instill in us the importance of the vitamins without any severe punishment.

To my surprise, however, my brother, the youngest of us, had reached his limit. He was having trouble standing. He knew he hadn't done it (though he was briefly accused of having flushed a tablet used for a little scuba diving toy he had). But he confessed. He told Mom and Dad that he had done it and that he was sorry.

My brother had always been my Dad's favorite, and I don't recall specifically what happened to him but I vaguely remember it being something minor like being sent to his room to think about what he had done. Dad apologized to my sister and I for having punished us for something we hadn't done.

And, very sadly, I didn't admit, even then, to having actually been the one that committed the crime.

I don't remember for certain, but I don't think I ever told my brother that I had done it. I might have. But I don't remember - we were all pretty young. I think I was still in early grade school. That said, I was definitely old enough to know what lying was and what right and wrong were.

But I have always remembered that time. I always remembered my brother having "admitted" to something he didn't actually do. He knew he risked serious punishment (when our punishments got especially bad, they involved being spanked on bare bottoms many dozen times with hot wheels tracks, something that I almost look back on as torture).

In childhood, my brother was always the purest hearted of all of us. I don't mean to say he later became evil - just that he became less selfless as he got older, something that happens to all of us in life.

I guess the main thing I am trying to explain in writing this all out is that we lose something when we grow up. Some of it is tangible, and some of it isn't.

The Mormon faith teaches us that we come into this world from the Spirit world, where we lived with Heavenly Father. I have been told that when we are born into this world that we don't remember making the decision to come here or what it was like in the Spirit world.

But lately, I've been thinking more about how close I think we actually are to the Spirit world and to Heavenly Father when we first arrive in this world. We ALL know of what we call "childhood innocence". Maybe we need to think a bit harder about "life's lessons" and whether our change of heart is really the right path for us to take.

If "life's lessons" all teach us to harden our hearts, to make them more impervious, more able to deal with strife and wrongdoing... what happens to our soft hearts? The hearts that can give and receive love, the hearts that are sensitive, caring and empathetic?

I for one am thinking about what was said in Mosiah 3:19. About being "submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, submitting to what the Lord inflicts".

Let us not harden our hearts fully. And let us try to spend more time softening our hearts. Let us remember what it was like to be a child.

And most of all, pray for those whose lives force them to harden their hearts just to survive. For how shall they let the Spirit in?

And no, I don't mean pray in the sense of "gosh, yeah, that would be bad for those people".

I mean PRAY. That is what I will do tonight. I will pray on bended knee for those in this world that have such strife in their lives that they know nothing of a soft heart.

And I will pray to thank the Lord for having been so kind as to let me see what gifts I have been given in this life. For it is with my soft heart that I let the Lord in.