Moments of Clarity

There are times when life gives you moments of clarity.  Like tonight when Steph noticed that I moved my hand from her arm to her hand.  You see I sweat easily and her skin gets irritated by it.  She noticed it.  But I didn't.  She told me and we had a tender moment.  I could see that in some ways I am becoming the man I aspire to be.  It was a moment to see the direction I am going.  What I am becoming.

I hope to continue on that path.

It reminds me of the moment in The Matrix when Neo recognizes he has complete control over his virtual surroundings.  Or when Eragon in the Inheritance Cycle series recognizes that he must not become faster in his sword skills, he must only wait for the right moment.  Or Nephi as he stood on the shore working to build the ship God asked him to build.  He said that nothing is impossible for the Lord.  If He asked Nephi to command the water that it be dry ground and if Nephi were to give that command, the water would become dry ground.  Or when Gandalf says to the bellowing balrog, "You. Shall. Not. Pass."

Sometimes I feel that power.  The power of God.  The power of Good.  Mostly I don't feel it that strongly though.  Most of the time is spent doing regular things.  Menial tasks.  The laundry.  The homework.  The grocery shopping.

I am reminded of the pilot who saved the flight that was rising out of an airport in New York City.  He said something to the effect that he went through training his entire career.  He practiced the training and over the years he had built up a reserve that he was able to tap.  When he needed it, it was there.  He tapped his reserves and it came out all right.

That is what I want for my family and friends and community.  I want it to turn out all right.  Ultimately.  Finally. Eternally.  It is so interesting that these destinies come from every day decisions.  That turn into every day habits.  That turn into the character of the people we are.  That determines our destinies.  Our every little decision.  Piled up over our lifetimes.  And eternities before and eternities to come.

My church teaches me that this life is different than what we experienced before.  That in this life, time exists.  There are deadlines.  If you don't meet the deadline, no one saves you.  Or if they do, it's because they have gone above and beyond.  Our lives are messy.  We don't remember our existence before.  We are here to live by faith.  To see through a glass darkly.

We are more mold-able here. We have tabernacles of flesh, maybe that is one reason.  Time causes things to change.  The fall of Adam caused entropy or a tendency for things to go towards chaos.  We must work to retain our lives.

I have not seen the lives we have ahead of us after this life.  I do know that we can improve our lives in the here and now by practicing Goodness.  Be Good according to the dictates of my conscience.  And when I fall short, get, back up and try again.  Allow forgiveness for myself and others.

I have faith in a great life to come.  That never ends for any of us.  We are Eternal beings, spiritually born of The Eternal Being.  Our lives are what we make of them.  The moral choices we make each day.  We can choose happiness or misery.  These don't come in one day but they do come drop by drop, day by day until we obtain an infinity of Goodness by the Grace of God, an exceeding depth of pain and bitterness, or somewhere in between.

So what choose you?  I choose life and life more abundantly.  But each day will be the verifier.  Choose each day to keep trusting in God.  To allow happiness in my tasks.  To lean into the work I have to do.  All with a prayer of gratitude for the chance to experience it and to do my part to pass it on.

Gratitude and Paying it Forward

A few years ago I watched Pay It Forward.  It has had a profound effect on my life.  In it, a boy growing up in a less than ideal situation is challenged by a grade school teacher on the first day of school with an assignment on how they would make the world a better place.  (Spoiler alert: I don't think the following spoils the movie but perhaps you may)

He takes the assignment to heart.  He decides to do something for three people that they cannot do for themselves.  Something that is meaningful to them.  When the person wants to pay them back, you have to tell them that they cannot pay it back.  You have to pay it forward.  The person is then challenged to so the same.  Pick three people and do something meaningful for them that they cannot do for themselves.  And the chain continues.

The boy only has a mom at home.  He finds a homeless, heroine addict and invites him to his home and feeds him.  The man sleeps in the bed of the truck in the garage.   His mom finds the man and just about shoots him with her shotgun.  The man ends up fixing up the truck for his mom.  The movie actually starts with a few of these meaningful acts of kindness.  At the beginning of the movie, a reporter has one of these things done to him.  The movie is about how the reporter traces these acts of kindness back to the boy.

To me this movie was a power story of the principles of gratitude and paying it forward.  I first learned of these principles from the sermon of King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon.  One of the things he teaches his people is that all are beggars before God.  That He has granted us our life and that He blesses us when we obey His commandments.  He always blesses us. We are forever in His debt because of this.  We cannot pay him back.  The only way we can try to pay him pack is to pay it forward.  Bless the lives of those around us in meaningful ways.

It is one of the geniuses of the plan of salvation. God provided that we could live on earth where there is the opportunity to choose between good and evil.  When each of us (except Jesus) chooses evil we place ourselves in eternal jeopardy.  We separate ourselves spiritually from God.  It is only through the grace and power of God that we have the opportunity to accept His salvation.  His plan is the ultimate pay it forward story.

Pay It Forward

Because of the miracle of Clean Films I watched Pay It Forward. When looking up a reference to the film, I noticed a foundation developed by the author of the book "to bring the message from her novel to classrooms across the country"

This movie came to my mind as I listened to Mosiah chapter 4 this morning. It was in this chapter that I first came to learn of the principle of pay it forward. When Jesus rescues me from the consequences of my sin he does not ask that I pay it back. He asks me to pay it forward.