A Fish in Murky Water

I thought this was a profound little proverb.  Then I went searching for the picture a friend had included in a collage and learned it's less Zen and more pop culture... but it's still a profound idea.  The quote actually comes from the movie Bulletproof Monk but it's based on a passage in the Ts’ai Ken T’an (translates as Vegetable Root Discourses) compiled by Hong Zicheng during the time of the Ming Dynasty (1368 to 1644) in China.  The actual quote from that text:  "Soil that is dirty grows the countless things. Water that is clear has no fish. Thus as a mature person, you properly include and retain a measure of grime. You can’t just go along enjoying your own private purity and restraint (Robert Aitken translation)."

I guess that means I've achieved some measure of maturity because sometimes I am pretty grimy!  And sometimes I find myself swimming in murky waters...

This week is a good example.  I've been mysteriously annoyed by everything.  Seriously!!  I mean everything annoys me.  Everything! Little things that should be no big deal get to me and I even realize right as I'm getting annoyed that they are tiny and of no consequence.  So do big things that are a big deal.  I've had to make a lot of phone calls.  And every last one of them has annoyed me.  Even more so when I get put on hold and have to listen to insipid hold music or an endless reel of repeating advertisements. And in that state of mind, I've snapped at people.  I've been pushy almost to the point of bullying.  I've used unkind, some might even say vulgar, words about the general populace of Cumberland, Maryland.

I realized I was getting out of hand and silenced myself in person and on social media.

And I've said I'm sorry.

The thing about ugly words... once they are out of your mouth, the damage is done.  You can't do some sort of magical backwards breathe and suck them back inside you.  They are out there in the universe and whatever ripple effect there is has begun.  You get the consequence.  Some people call that Karma.  Some talk about the universe reflecting back on you.  This has been a week in my quest to learn how to be happy again that's just knocked me on my butt and I haven't reacted well to the resistance in getting what I want.

I also know that I'm my own worst critic.  And I'm trying to incorporate compassion for myself into how I look at life and what I have accomplished.  It's hard.  I fail often.  But I always try again to change that internal dialogue.  I'm trying to believe that I deserve better.  And maybe more importantly, that I can have better.  In all my grimy glory, I can be better because my imperfections, impurities, and the murky water I sometimes find myself in all provide a fertile field for growth!

Lehi's Dream: What's In It For Me?

Over the past couple of years my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, has undergone some major shifts. The doctrine is the same, but some of the details about how we practice it have changed very much.  We've gone from a 3-hour block of Sunday meetings to a 2-hour block and began to shift responsibility for learning the gospel to the home.  Instead of going to church to learn God's word and plan home activities to support those lessons, now what happens at church is to support the lessons learned at home.  It sounds good but I've struggled to make it happen in my own life.

This year I'm working hard on creating a better me, both in body and spirit, and I was thinking about what I was doing differently at the time in my life when I was the happiest. I realized the depth of my commitment to my spiritual practice has slipped.  Badly.  Since we are still pretty early in the year, I decided I'd try harder and that I'd catch up to the current Come Follow Me curriculum.  The discussion/lesson I just finished was intended for the week running January 13-19.  It's about Lehi's Dream in the Book of Mormon.  The reading is 1 Nephi 8-10.

Lehi is a prophet who lived in Jerusalem about 600 years before Jesus Christ was born.  God commanded him in a dream to leave with his family and seek a promised land before Jerusalem fell and many Jews were carried off as Babylonian slaves.  He did.  And just like in our families some of the kids grumbled and rebelled while others believed in his words and obeyed.  God used them all to accomplish His purposes.  After this little family has been wandering in the wilderness for a period of time, Lehi has another vision.

Lehi's vision of the Tree of Life by Steven Neal

He sees a tree in the distance with the most glorious fruit; fruit that is so delicious and satisfying that he describes it as highly desirable.  To get to the tree, you must grab hold of an iron rod to guide you along a narrow path. If you let go, there are mists of darkness where you will get lost and a dirty roiling river where you will drown if you fall in. Lehi, after he's tasted the fruit, wants all of his family to partake as well but his two rebellious oldest sons choose not to grab hold of the rod and follow the path to get to the tree.  Lehi also sees endless throngs of people pressing forward; some of them find the path, some wander off into darkness, some drown, and some reject the gift after they've sampled it.  There's even a 'great and spacious building' without a foundation where naysayers have gathered to scoff at those who are on the path to the tree or have made it and tasted but have doubts.

The account of his vision is full of symbolism that applies to being a believer in today's world of ridiculing unbelievers.  The fruit is God's love, the iron rod is the scriptures whose message guides us in our journey back to God, the mists and river are the temptations to do things we know we shouldn't...  But there's also a very individual message to every person who studies it.  We are all there as part of that endless throng.  And so it offers an invitation to reflect on just where you are in your journey.

If I'm honest, and I am, I've become way too casual in how I'm making my journey.  Along this path, I've stopped to sit on the rocks alongside it for a long rest.  And I've backtracked a few times to hang out with a different set of friends.  I've hooked my pinkie finger around the iron rod and leaned way out over the chasm of the filthy river just to see what it looked like.  Heck, I've probably spun round and round on it like a kid on monkey bars a few times.  My path looks nothing like what the words "strait and narrow" bring to mind... but more like one that weaves and winds wildly, grows faint in spots, and is blocked by huge boulders in other places.  This is a good time to reign that in and rest my soul in the simplicity of following a clearly marked path.

Gordon B. Hinckley once said, "To me, the gospel is not a great mass of theological jargon.  It is a simple and beautiful and logical thing, with one quiet truth following another in orderly sequence.  I do not fret over the mysteries.  I do not worry whether the heavenly gates swing or slide.  I am only concerned that they open."

That it's simple and beautiful and logical really resonates with me... it's a good description of the criteria I'm using to rebuild my life.