This is a picture of a sandwich.
Monday, May 31, 2010
Sunday, May 30, 2010
5.30.10
Journal excerpt (5.30.10):
Ten days in Uganda and so much has already transpired. I'm sitting in church now, listening to a wonderful talk on the subject of sacrifice. To me, the meaning of this topic has taken on such an important and personal nature, especially as great friends and [even] professors have helped me to understand its deeper denotations. To me, now, sacrifice is a method of edification through the responsible fulfillment of our duty to make things holy, especially ourselves. To sacrifice our will connotes both a "giving up" of prideful tendencies and also, perhaps more importantly, the acceptation of a holier attitude; the realization of a divine nature by literally becoming more like our Savior. The principle then becomes a beautiful, edifying part of our repentance process.
Work goes well in Kampala: we've learned so much already about NGO work and the difference incentives in play within the sector. My greatest hope is that this research can help development to become more real and sustainable.
What does it mean to hope for truths not seen? I think that, perhaps, hope is not only belief, but is a divinely encouraged and divinely granted idea. That is, it is manifest in the steps of a child influenced by the truth granted in revelation and testimony. The child may guess along the way, but guesswork is not faith: faith is the complete opening of the heart to the point that it becomes our vision and our steps then become the fulfillment of divine will. And not just His will for us, but the alignment of our wills for the maximization of exaltation.
And, I think, one of Satan's greatest traps is to encourage us to second guess our steps and to doubt our journey, even to the point of stopping our feet and waiting for knowledge to walk; waiting for the result before we take action; waiting for the Lord to motivate us to walk before we do. He (Satan) helps us to fill our hearts with fear, doubt, and pride, killing our faith because the eye of our heart has been closed. From there, every step hurts because it feels so unnatural and the lack of knowledge of what lies below our feet creates an unbearable fear that makes our heart perpetuate its addiction to inaction. We no longer want to walk or stand or anything, even exist. We only want to sleep eternally so that, at least, we may find some comfort and a taste of happiness in the whims of dream. And, soon enough, our future and past become the dreams that we crave from our sleep and we desire only to suddenly wake up in either one; we hate the present as it is only a continuous reminder that we are not happy and we learn to live by pining for the hope of a detailed, and even dangerously, yet only supposedly justified, dream.
I have been there, and nothing I have ever experienced has compared to that terrible feeling of despair; it was, to me, the fire and brimstone of hell itself and I shudder to think that any individual could choose to be consigned eternally to such a state.
But as terrible as was and can be the feeling of this motivation-less decay, its opposite bares a beauty of infinitely more depth. And it starts with the opening of our eyes - the opening of our heart (see Helaman 3:35). And then we must walk and keep walking, baring all the time within our hearts the truths divine; truths not seen, but felt. And, therefore, a trek not known, but hoped for.
Ten days in Uganda and so much has already transpired. I'm sitting in church now, listening to a wonderful talk on the subject of sacrifice. To me, the meaning of this topic has taken on such an important and personal nature, especially as great friends and [even] professors have helped me to understand its deeper denotations. To me, now, sacrifice is a method of edification through the responsible fulfillment of our duty to make things holy, especially ourselves. To sacrifice our will connotes both a "giving up" of prideful tendencies and also, perhaps more importantly, the acceptation of a holier attitude; the realization of a divine nature by literally becoming more like our Savior. The principle then becomes a beautiful, edifying part of our repentance process.
Work goes well in Kampala: we've learned so much already about NGO work and the difference incentives in play within the sector. My greatest hope is that this research can help development to become more real and sustainable.
What does it mean to hope for truths not seen? I think that, perhaps, hope is not only belief, but is a divinely encouraged and divinely granted idea. That is, it is manifest in the steps of a child influenced by the truth granted in revelation and testimony. The child may guess along the way, but guesswork is not faith: faith is the complete opening of the heart to the point that it becomes our vision and our steps then become the fulfillment of divine will. And not just His will for us, but the alignment of our wills for the maximization of exaltation.
And, I think, one of Satan's greatest traps is to encourage us to second guess our steps and to doubt our journey, even to the point of stopping our feet and waiting for knowledge to walk; waiting for the result before we take action; waiting for the Lord to motivate us to walk before we do. He (Satan) helps us to fill our hearts with fear, doubt, and pride, killing our faith because the eye of our heart has been closed. From there, every step hurts because it feels so unnatural and the lack of knowledge of what lies below our feet creates an unbearable fear that makes our heart perpetuate its addiction to inaction. We no longer want to walk or stand or anything, even exist. We only want to sleep eternally so that, at least, we may find some comfort and a taste of happiness in the whims of dream. And, soon enough, our future and past become the dreams that we crave from our sleep and we desire only to suddenly wake up in either one; we hate the present as it is only a continuous reminder that we are not happy and we learn to live by pining for the hope of a detailed, and even dangerously, yet only supposedly justified, dream.
I have been there, and nothing I have ever experienced has compared to that terrible feeling of despair; it was, to me, the fire and brimstone of hell itself and I shudder to think that any individual could choose to be consigned eternally to such a state.
But as terrible as was and can be the feeling of this motivation-less decay, its opposite bares a beauty of infinitely more depth. And it starts with the opening of our eyes - the opening of our heart (see Helaman 3:35). And then we must walk and keep walking, baring all the time within our hearts the truths divine; truths not seen, but felt. And, therefore, a trek not known, but hoped for.
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