Giving Ourselves in Love

I read a good article today on the difference between covenants and contracts.  In it, Jeffrey Thayne points out that covenant is not a word in regular use today.  Sometimes an economic contract is used to try to explain what a covenant is.

A contract is formed when two parties, each with particular needs or wants, make an agreement to supply the other’s wants in exchange for their own... If conditions change significantly so that one member of the contract can no longer hold up their end of the deal, the agreement is dissolved.

One example he gives to contrast the meanings of covenant and contract is how I approach my marriage relationship.  If I am consumer-oriented or if I approach my marriage as primarily about personal fulfillment, I may take a 50-50 approach.  I expect my wife to contribute 50% and I the other half.  On the other hand, if I treat my marriage appropriately, as a covenant, I think of what I may do to serve her.  My focus is on her and not myself. I like the quote he gives from David Lapp:

In courting and choosing whom to marry, we would do well to focus on the person and to remind ourselves that marriage is about giving ourselves in love to another person, and not primarily about individual fulfillment. … Marriage isn’t necessarily a ticket to our own version of individual fulfillment. What if your future wife becomes severely paralyzed? What if your child has Down syndrome? I suspect we have not adequately wrapped our minds around the meaning of marriage until we have considered the possibility that at any moment, whether during the honeymoon or in mid-life or in old age, tragic circumstances could call us to give up almost everything—our dream career, our comfort, our “happiness” — for the sake of the beloved.

I love the story of Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-nego and the phrase "But if not, … we will not serve thy gods, nor worship the golden image which thou hast set up"*  Jeffery concisely put this principle as,

The only blessings that are unequivocally promised us in this lifetime for strict obedience are peace of conscience, companionship of the Spirit, and discernment.*

The sermon of King Benjamin describes very well how our covenant relationships are not always profitable.  There is something of a pay it forward principle that is not included in a strictly contractual relationship.

I covenant because I am grateful to God and his mercy and his generosity.  I trust that He will continue to bless me in His own time and in His own way to my eternal benefit.  I love the way Jeffrey closes.

When we truly understand the nature of a covenant, we will realize that the first solution to difficulties in our covenantal relationships is not renegotiation or even communication (which connotes a two-way contractual agreement). It is to realign our hearts towards service, compassion, commitment, forgiveness, and love. Each of these terms connote a one-way submission of the self to the Other, which is what I believe covenants are all about.

Emotional Bank Account

My good friend Buzzz shared this recently.  I don't want to forget it.

"For any relationship to succeed, five positive things need to be said to every one negative. There are NO exceptions!"

Another friend said that this particularly applies in conflict.  I have also heard it described as an emotional bank account.  You need to be focused on deposits and withdraw less.  Not that you use it as a score board.  Just thinking about what can I do to make this experience more meaningful and positive.

Learning to Hope

Steph and I met Mariama Kallon on our trip to Utah.  She is from Sierra Leone.  She told an incredible story from her life in Learning to Hope in the New Era of Nov 2006 pdf. 

It was a great reminder of how blessed I am with the security and clothes and home and food I have readily available to me.

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.

A Law of Increasing Returns

I just listened to "A Law of Increasing Returns" by Henry B. Eyring.  It is a fireside talk he gave March 28, 1982. I love to hear him talk.  I have been touched by so many of his talks.  He spoke about his father,

He just had a general bias toward putting in hard work up front and letting the rewards take a long time to come, even forever.

Even in the confusion of the last night I spent with him, he gave me some advice. I was helping him walk. I’m not even sure he knew I was there. But very clearly, almost with a booming voice, he said, “Well, let’s just do the homework tonight, and we’ll see how the exam goes in the morning.” He’s getting the grade now, and he spent a life doing as much homework as he could. Most of us could move profitably toward a little more homework and leave the grades for tomorrow.

 There are so many people I know that fit this.  That put in more than they take.  Not the least of them if my sweet wife.  She is so patient and persistent and loving and hard working.

Henry Eyring went on to share some hints on how to be better at working and waiting.
- Finding humor in the present
- Seeing the blessing of the present
- Keep my eye on the distant goal
- Remember the blessings that will come

The Civility Experiment

This literally brought me to tears.  I have been a part of a few online groups where we have torn each other up.  There are also times when through the messiness of all our backgrounds there at least comes understanding.  Even if there is not agreement.

I think we may be judged by how we treat those we passionately disagree with.  Do we vilify them, or do we seek understanding?  Do we allow ourselves to be stirred up to anger or do we extend the true love of Christ?

Holy Thursday

From Tarzana Joe


I am sitting at the table
Waiting for dinner to be served
It’s a big traditional spread
Someone brings out bread
It looks good but I’m told to wait for the blessing

It’s been a great week.
The crowds were big and steady
Why can’t we eat, already?

We’re all here but we’re waiting for Him
And no one seems to know the hour He’s coming

Wine is poured; but again, I’m told to wait for the blessing

Then He comes in; He says a prayer and finally we eat
(Someone says something about feet.)

Everyone is talking and having a good time
Until He says, Tonight, I will be betrayed by one of you.”

And suddenly, I am certain that he is talking about me.

-Tarzana Joe Easter 2011

Debates on the Reality of God

A link on the side of berry blurbs gave me the opportunity to stay up way too late watching a debate on the existence of God.  I may have more to say about this here but for now I just want to remember how to get to it again.

Dinesh D'Souza Debates Daniel Dennett

I Can't Do It All At Once

"I can't do it all at once", that is the title to a Kenneth Cope song.  One of my all time favorite songs.  It speaks to me.  I seem to go at two speeds, full force forward and comatose.  Berry Blurbs posted recently on how most  people resist large changes.  I am no different.

I look back on the last several decades and sometimes I don't see much.  It is the patterns of behavior that I see that have of late disheartened me.  Like either taking on too much or becoming a sluggard.  There has to be a happy middle ground.  I can relate to the feeling Nephi had of himself.  Perhaps we all look too harshly (and sometimes too leniently) at ourselves.  (Maybe all sin comes at the extremes of behavior)

In 2009, I referred to a talk be Jorge Zeballos.

Immediately after teaching that “it is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength,” King Benjamin indicated that “it is expedient that he should be diligent, that thereby he might win the prize." (Jorge F. Zeballos, “Attempting the Impossible,” Ensign, Nov 2009, 33–34)

This seems to teach a perfect balance.  Do not run too fast, but be diligent.  Papa D wrote yesterday a very good post on balance.

All these things make me think of the time I decided to teach myself to tie my shoes differently.  I had always made the first cross knot by putting the right string over the left.  I then proceeded to tie with the loop starting in the right hand.  This produces an adequate knot.  I learned from my wife many years ago that it also is not as pretty and balanced.  When I would tie a ribbon around one of my daughter's waist in the same way I tied my shoes, it produced a knot that leans one way.

So I decided to change how I tie my shoes, partly so it would be more automatic for me when I tied my daughter's bows.  More so, I wanted to practice changing.  In the spirit of this post, I wanted to just change one little thing.  So I started tying my shoes by putting the left string over the right.  Then I continued as I did before with the loop in the right hand.  I now tie a much more balanced knot and my daughters have prettier bows (though I am sure I can further improve my technique).

Anyway, here is to a late, not new years resolution.  To change a few things in my life, just a few, maybe I will start with one.  I haven't decided what it is yet, but I commit to change even a little for the better.  To be diligent as King Benjamin suggested but not at a pace that winds me too much.