Self-preservation is the first order of business.
What is self, but what I choose? Our ability to choose is our identity. It's our flavor. Without it, we are not what we are. St. Augustine in his Confessions said "I knew as well that I had a will as that I lived." book VII, part III. Autonomy is our self.
Plan Bers cannot agree to disagree. The basic tenets of their faith do not allow for it. They seek to eliminate choice. Since we are our choices, they seek eliminate themselves and us. Satan was a murderer from the beginning (1). To "overcome" is to retain our agency in the face of all that Satan uses to persuade us to forsake it (pleasure and pain). Since evil is ever existent and ever wanting our destruction, self-preservation becomes the first order of business. It is the second birth. It is equal to the creation of life. It is keeping the eternal fire burning, and it is primarily man's role.
Self-preservation is the first and the last battle between God and Satan. It is the first and the last principle in man's development. In the war in heaven, we fought Lucifer for man's agency. In this life, we often lose our bodies in the war for agency. But, the point will come when the very last attempt of our adversary and his minions to destroy our autonomy will fail. The war will not go on forever. The war is our development. In the end, we will shut our adversary away, to protect ourselves, because he is unable to stop seeking our destruction.
Our souls consist of our spirit and our body. Our spirit is eternal. All of our bodies will die. Self-preservation, in our current state, is comprised of both spiritual and temporal preservation, or, protecting our spirit and our body. In the scriptures, we read about men who are praised for laying down their lives (2), and men who are praised for taking up the sword (3). This may seem like a paradox. In reality, it is a matter of priority. Protection of both is important, but protection of the spirit is most important. If we surrender our bodies to death, our spirits will still live. If we surrender our spirits to death, both parts of us will die. Therefore, our need to protect the existence of our body is smaller than our need to protect the existence of our spirit. In cases of war, those who protect both spirit and body are heralded (3). When the protection of the body is a threat to the protection of the spirit, those who sacrifice their body are heralded (2). When the protection of the spirit is not in danger, protection of the body is our first priority.
(4)
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1 John 8:44
2 Alma 24
3 Alma 48:17
4 Force has been given to us to defend our own individual rights. Who will dare to say that force has been given to us to destroy the equal rights of our brothers? - Frederic Bastiat, The Law
Saturday, June 29, 2013
The Love and Lure
The Love is action. It is the work God and His workers do to bring others to the optimal state of their design. It is reaching out to meet the needs of others and looking inward to maximize compliance with The Law.
The Lure is inaction. It is the enticing theory marketed by the devil and his subscribers which claims that all bliss can be had without price, without work (except the work required to establish the system, which would then eliminate pain and be maintained perpetually by force). It is face painting for the sake of enticement, believing that when enough people sign up (ironically, by Choice), Utopia will spontaneously combust; thus, placing attractiveness on the pedestal as mankind's greatest virtue. No wonder God refers to His greatest enemy as a whore.
Because God's love for us is so pure and altruistic, because He only ever desires what is best for us, and because He knows even better than we do what is, in fact, best for us, any doctrine or teaching that persuades men to follow any strategies other than God's for meeting their needs - in other words pride - is worthy of the most heated condemnation. In fact, only the most heated condemnation can adequately communicate God's love.
Plan A's goal and means of achieving it are clearly stated. The path is known. The biggest challenge may be boredom.
Plan B's goal is clearly stated, but it's means of achieving it are vague. The unknowns in this plan give it its mystery and lure. Excitement is it's draw. -------------------------------------------------------------------
"Darkness is lack of light as sin is lack of love." ACIM 1-IV-3,1
Plan B's goal is clearly stated, but it's means of achieving it are vague. The unknowns in this plan give it its mystery and lure. Excitement is it's draw. -------------------------------------------------------------------
"Darkness is lack of light as sin is lack of love." ACIM 1-IV-3,1
Saturday, June 8, 2013
Power
I used to think that power looked like this
So, I used to think that it was better to be a lot bad than a little good, because power is what influences people, and influencing people is what gets you what you want. But, now I know that power looks like this
A little good is a lot better than a lot bad; because, of what benefit is great strength in strategies that fail? 1 A tiny bit of power to effect happiness in some small, seemingly imperceptible way is better than any amount of force which always fails. One life grown is better than infinite minions marching toward death.
I used to think that power was acquired by influence over others. But power is accessed by connecting with God. And so, the least of us which connect with Him are stronger than the largest of them which do not. 2
Here's a riddle: Of what use is unbridled power? Please comment.
---------------------------------------------------------------
1 Psalms 37:16,17
2 1 Nephi 2:23
update 1.30.18 "a living dog is better than a dead lion" Ecclesiastes 9:4
So, I used to think that it was better to be a lot bad than a little good, because power is what influences people, and influencing people is what gets you what you want. But, now I know that power looks like this
I used to think that power was acquired by influence over others. But power is accessed by connecting with God. And so, the least of us which connect with Him are stronger than the largest of them which do not. 2
Here's a riddle: Of what use is unbridled power? Please comment.
---------------------------------------------------------------
1 Psalms 37:16,17
2 1 Nephi 2:23
update 1.30.18 "a living dog is better than a dead lion" Ecclesiastes 9:4
Sunday, April 14, 2013
Saturday, March 30, 2013
Connection
Connections are bonds between lives which produce meaning and happiness.
Connections are formed when needs are met. We seek to connect with ourselves and with others. To connect with the life in us, we must be aware of our needs in each moment and meet them. To connect with others, we must be aware of their needs and be willing to meet them. Connections are the fulfilling of life. Sustainable connections make eternal life. People without connections are zombies.
Connecting with ourselves and others fills the measure of our creation. Who doesn't know that this life is 'all about relationships'? In this Ted talk, Brene' Brown says, "Connection is why we're here; it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives; this is what it's all about." The worth of souls is great, and thus, connections with them are rich rewards. 1
Connections increase happiness and decrease hurt through synergy and redistribution, respectively. 2
Connections increase happiness
Happiness can be pleasure, joy, or any combination of the two. Joy is most distinguishable from pleasure by the presence of trust. Trust, in this context, represents confidence that the enjoyment will continue. We all have needs each day. Because we are eternal beings, needs must be perpetually met. Thus, connections are helpful when they endure, and hurtful when they end. Trust is built as assurance of continuation is experienced. Joy is the result of sustained connection. A unique trait of joy is that, in the giving, taking, and sharing which creates it, no participant is diminished. Joy is NEVER had at the witholding of another human's needs, even the giver's. Joyful connection is synergistic. In the absence of trust, or assurance of continuation, happiness is called pleasure. Temporary joy is a non-sequitor better named pleasure.
In a connection where there is trust, giving and taking is synergistic. In a connection without trust, either the giving is depleting, the taking is dissatisfying, or both. This happens whenever there is coercion in the process of giving and receiving. When a person meets a need without a feeling of choice, they feel like they’ve lost something, and they will seek to have it back. Some time later, that person will come back around looking to replenish themselves at their taker's expense. Whenever there is a connection formed without assurance, there is both pleasure and pain - pleasure for one and pain for the other now, and the reverse for each later as the depleted person comes around seeking to replenish himself. Because this boomerang effect happens every time, life is not fulfilled in joyless connections.
Connections decrease hurt
When we bear one another's burdens, they become light. This occurs when a person reveals their hurt to another person and is received with empathy. Empathy is described by Marshall Rosenberg and Brene' Brown basically as 'mourning with those who mourn.' In the first place, for empathy to take place, another person must be present. That other person must then hear the giver's pain and receive it. The reception of the pain builds the bond and lightens the hurt in the giver. "There is something enormously valuable when we are in pain to just having another person there in contact with it" 3. To receive another person's pain, we must eliminate judgment. Brene' Brown defines empathy as "the ability to tap into our own experiences in order to relate to an experience someone is relating to us." Judgment is saying "I am not that," and so disallows relating. Pitying pain with judgment is sympathy. "Empathy is about connection; sympathy is about separation" 4. MR says "the key ingredient of empathy is presence: we are wholly present with the other party and what they are experiencing. This quality of presence distinguishes empathy from either mental understanding or sympathy" 5.
There are varying degrees of connection with others. Facebook testifies of different degrees of relationships. Google + acts as a second witness. Connection with others can include the physical, but the greatest connections are mostly spiritual. Though the science is forthcoming, physical processes are metaphors for spiritual processes. Spiritual processes are just as real as physical processes, though they are more important and more meaningful because our bodies are temporary and our spirits are forever 6. Spiritual matter exists. We know this through science, intuition, and confirmation from God through various means, including messengers. The scriptures say that our hearts can be knit together. God and Christ are one and they desire us to be one with them. Acknowledging spiritual realities can heighten the joy we experience through connecting with others.
God's goal is for all of us to be one. God's commandments are designed to connect His children together and to Him. Jesus saw sin as springing from unmet needs. Laws protect our connections. Laws circumscribe. Laws' circumscription are the protective walls of our home - where our connections dwell. When we are keeping all of the commandments, we are wholly connected to Him, and as connected as possible to others. Becoming one with another person requires that both people abide all of God's law. The breaking of God's commandments disconnects us from others, including God. This is intuitive. How can I bond with someone who isn't honest? faithful in marriage? kind? "But whoso
The greatest connections are the most rewarding and fill peoples' greatest needs. Our greatest need is to exist. Our Eternal Father ensures that we will all exist eternally. Next, our greatest need is to be connected to the life within us; and then, to be connected with the lives within us. By "lives within us", I mean our ancestry and posterity. We are one link in an eternal chain, or rather, slinky.
Ultimately, we receive a fullness of joy and fill the entire measure of our creation when we are fully connected with those who were before us, are around us, and come after us, eternally. 7 When I make babies (excuse me, when I help make babies), I satisfy that baby's need to exist just as my parents satisfied my need to exist. I also satisfy the human family's need to continue to exist.
The stars are sinners' glory. They are individual lights disconnected from each other. What would it look like if you took all the stars in the night sky and gathered them together? You'd probably have a sun. The sun lights up the sky with no darkness. Stars do not. The sun is the saints' glory. The difference between these two kingdoms are the laws. Laws circumscribe. In this scenerio, laws would make possible the gathering by circumscribing the the light.
Connections with Omnipotent Beings
Connection with God brings the greatest peace, because He can do some hearty celebrating as well as some heavy lifting. This is why connection with God, or knowing Him, is called life Eternal. Remember, connections constitute life, so He says, "come to me, that ye might have life."
When Christ says "come unto me," He's saying, "connect with me." He says "come unto me" instead of "connect with me" because in our relationship with Deity, He is ALWAYS ready to connect. He is always vulnerable, reaching out. He stands at the door and knocks.
God’s presence, through the Holy Ghost, is the greatest gift I know. Job felt similarly. Because connection can be formed simply by proximity, the presence or withdrawal of someone omnipotent stimulates particularly potent happiness or sadness, making our heaviest burdens light, or our greatest pleasures heavy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1 "If I were to give one piece of advice for how to be happier, it would be to carve out more time with friends and loved ones, because the best predictor of happiness is the quality of our social relationships" (p. 51). Redirect, by Timothy Wilson
2 Numbers 11:17 ~ Mosiah 18:8,9 ~ "For when many rejoice together, the joy of each on is the fuller, in that they are incited and inflamed by one another." - St. Augustine (354 - 430 A.D.) in The Confessions of St. Augustine. The Easton Press, 1979, The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written. pg. 128.
3 Being Me Loving You, Marshall Rosenberg, p. 20,213
4 I thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't), Brene' Brown, p. 51
Connections are formed when needs are met. We seek to connect with ourselves and with others. To connect with the life in us, we must be aware of our needs in each moment and meet them. To connect with others, we must be aware of their needs and be willing to meet them. Connections are the fulfilling of life. Sustainable connections make eternal life. People without connections are zombies.
Connecting with ourselves and others fills the measure of our creation. Who doesn't know that this life is 'all about relationships'? In this Ted talk, Brene' Brown says, "Connection is why we're here; it's what gives purpose and meaning to our lives; this is what it's all about." The worth of souls is great, and thus, connections with them are rich rewards. 1
Connections increase happiness and decrease hurt through synergy and redistribution, respectively. 2
Connections increase happiness
Happiness can be pleasure, joy, or any combination of the two. Joy is most distinguishable from pleasure by the presence of trust. Trust, in this context, represents confidence that the enjoyment will continue. We all have needs each day. Because we are eternal beings, needs must be perpetually met. Thus, connections are helpful when they endure, and hurtful when they end. Trust is built as assurance of continuation is experienced. Joy is the result of sustained connection. A unique trait of joy is that, in the giving, taking, and sharing which creates it, no participant is diminished. Joy is NEVER had at the witholding of another human's needs, even the giver's. Joyful connection is synergistic. In the absence of trust, or assurance of continuation, happiness is called pleasure. Temporary joy is a non-sequitor better named pleasure.
In a connection where there is trust, giving and taking is synergistic. In a connection without trust, either the giving is depleting, the taking is dissatisfying, or both. This happens whenever there is coercion in the process of giving and receiving. When a person meets a need without a feeling of choice, they feel like they’ve lost something, and they will seek to have it back. Some time later, that person will come back around looking to replenish themselves at their taker's expense. Whenever there is a connection formed without assurance, there is both pleasure and pain - pleasure for one and pain for the other now, and the reverse for each later as the depleted person comes around seeking to replenish himself. Because this boomerang effect happens every time, life is not fulfilled in joyless connections.
Connections decrease hurt
When we bear one another's burdens, they become light. This occurs when a person reveals their hurt to another person and is received with empathy. Empathy is described by Marshall Rosenberg and Brene' Brown basically as 'mourning with those who mourn.' In the first place, for empathy to take place, another person must be present. That other person must then hear the giver's pain and receive it. The reception of the pain builds the bond and lightens the hurt in the giver. "There is something enormously valuable when we are in pain to just having another person there in contact with it" 3. To receive another person's pain, we must eliminate judgment. Brene' Brown defines empathy as "the ability to tap into our own experiences in order to relate to an experience someone is relating to us." Judgment is saying "I am not that," and so disallows relating. Pitying pain with judgment is sympathy. "Empathy is about connection; sympathy is about separation" 4. MR says "the key ingredient of empathy is presence: we are wholly present with the other party and what they are experiencing. This quality of presence distinguishes empathy from either mental understanding or sympathy" 5.
There are varying degrees of connection with others. Facebook testifies of different degrees of relationships. Google + acts as a second witness. Connection with others can include the physical, but the greatest connections are mostly spiritual. Though the science is forthcoming, physical processes are metaphors for spiritual processes. Spiritual processes are just as real as physical processes, though they are more important and more meaningful because our bodies are temporary and our spirits are forever 6. Spiritual matter exists. We know this through science, intuition, and confirmation from God through various means, including messengers. The scriptures say that our hearts can be knit together. God and Christ are one and they desire us to be one with them. Acknowledging spiritual realities can heighten the joy we experience through connecting with others.
God's goal is for all of us to be one. God's commandments are designed to connect His children together and to Him. Jesus saw sin as springing from unmet needs. Laws protect our connections. Laws circumscribe. Laws' circumscription are the protective walls of our home - where our connections dwell. When we are keeping all of the commandments, we are wholly connected to Him, and as connected as possible to others. Becoming one with another person requires that both people abide all of God's law. The breaking of God's commandments disconnects us from others, including God. This is intuitive. How can I bond with someone who isn't honest? faithful in marriage? kind? "But whoso
The greatest connections are the most rewarding and fill peoples' greatest needs. Our greatest need is to exist. Our Eternal Father ensures that we will all exist eternally. Next, our greatest need is to be connected to the life within us; and then, to be connected with the lives within us. By "lives within us", I mean our ancestry and posterity. We are one link in an eternal chain, or rather, slinky.
Ultimately, we receive a fullness of joy and fill the entire measure of our creation when we are fully connected with those who were before us, are around us, and come after us, eternally. 7 When I make babies (excuse me, when I help make babies), I satisfy that baby's need to exist just as my parents satisfied my need to exist. I also satisfy the human family's need to continue to exist.
The stars are sinners' glory. They are individual lights disconnected from each other. What would it look like if you took all the stars in the night sky and gathered them together? You'd probably have a sun. The sun lights up the sky with no darkness. Stars do not. The sun is the saints' glory. The difference between these two kingdoms are the laws. Laws circumscribe. In this scenerio, laws would make possible the gathering by circumscribing the the light.
Connections with Omnipotent Beings
Connection with God brings the greatest peace, because He can do some hearty celebrating as well as some heavy lifting. This is why connection with God, or knowing Him, is called life Eternal. Remember, connections constitute life, so He says, "come to me, that ye might have life."
When Christ says "come unto me," He's saying, "connect with me." He says "come unto me" instead of "connect with me" because in our relationship with Deity, He is ALWAYS ready to connect. He is always vulnerable, reaching out. He stands at the door and knocks.
God’s presence, through the Holy Ghost, is the greatest gift I know. Job felt similarly. Because connection can be formed simply by proximity, the presence or withdrawal of someone omnipotent stimulates particularly potent happiness or sadness, making our heaviest burdens light, or our greatest pleasures heavy.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1 "If I were to give one piece of advice for how to be happier, it would be to carve out more time with friends and loved ones, because the best predictor of happiness is the quality of our social relationships" (p. 51). Redirect, by Timothy Wilson
2 Numbers 11:17 ~ Mosiah 18:8,9 ~ "For when many rejoice together, the joy of each on is the fuller, in that they are incited and inflamed by one another." - St. Augustine (354 - 430 A.D.) in The Confessions of St. Augustine. The Easton Press, 1979, The 100 Greatest Books Ever Written. pg. 128.
3 Being Me Loving You, Marshall Rosenberg, p. 20,213
4 I thought It Was Just Me (But It Isn't), Brene' Brown, p. 51
5 Living Nonviolent Communication, Marshall Rosenberg, p.3.
6 Luke 5:17-26. Consider this story. Reflect on the reality of spiritual deformity/infirmity. Reflect on the value of spiritual wellness over the value of physical wholeness. Luke 12:4,5.
7 see LDS doctrine of "Exaltation"
6 Luke 5:17-26. Consider this story. Reflect on the reality of spiritual deformity/infirmity. Reflect on the value of spiritual wellness over the value of physical wholeness. Luke 12:4,5.
7 see LDS doctrine of "Exaltation"
Needs
Needs can be thought of as resources that life requires to sustain itself. Needs are indications of life. The meeting of needs is the fulfillment of life.
Living consists in being connected to needs and seeing they're met. We can connect to our own life by seeing our own needs and getting them met. We can connect to the life in others by recognizing their needs and meeting them.
All people have the same needs. Here is a list (not comprehensive) of needs by Marshall Rosenberg, professional peacemaker, from whose program I derive many of the ideas on this blog.
For needs to be met, they must be known. The revealing of needs is called vulnerability. "It's a gift when you reveal yourself nakely and honestly, at any given moment, for no other purpose than to reveal what's alive in you. Just 'Here I am, and here is what I would like.' This is my vulnerability at this moment." (1) When we do this, our need can be met.
We all have needs each day. As these needs are met, connections form and grow with the one meeting them. It feels good to have a need met, and it hurts to have an unmet need. That's why they're called needs. Because we are all connected through relation to God, we have needs only others can meet. We also have a need to meet others' needs. This is because we are all literally connected as family. Since we share the same parts, it can rightly be said that part of me is in you, and part of you is in me. Thus, "we can never really take care of ourselves without showing equal concern for the needs of others." (2)
Needs are the stimuli of our feelings. A common mistake is to think that another person is responsible for my feelings. But, while I may have a strong preference about who fills a particular need of mine, no specific type of need requires a specific person to fill it.
We are our needs. So, if someone completely fills my needs, they fill me. They are in me, and if do the same for them, I am in them. Two people who perfectly meet each others needs can be considered one as they completely fill each other. There is no end to the building of bonds or meeting of needs. There is no end to union.
As our needs are met, including, and perhaps especially, to meet the needs of others, we fill the measure of our creation.
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1. pg.146, Living Nonviolent Communication, Marshall Rosenberg.
2. pg.138, Living Nonviolent Communication, Marshall Rosenberg.
Living consists in being connected to needs and seeing they're met. We can connect to our own life by seeing our own needs and getting them met. We can connect to the life in others by recognizing their needs and meeting them.
All people have the same needs. Here is a list (not comprehensive) of needs by Marshall Rosenberg, professional peacemaker, from whose program I derive many of the ideas on this blog.
We all have needs each day. As these needs are met, connections form and grow with the one meeting them. It feels good to have a need met, and it hurts to have an unmet need. That's why they're called needs. Because we are all connected through relation to God, we have needs only others can meet. We also have a need to meet others' needs. This is because we are all literally connected as family. Since we share the same parts, it can rightly be said that part of me is in you, and part of you is in me. Thus, "we can never really take care of ourselves without showing equal concern for the needs of others." (2)
Needs are the stimuli of our feelings. A common mistake is to think that another person is responsible for my feelings. But, while I may have a strong preference about who fills a particular need of mine, no specific type of need requires a specific person to fill it.
We are our needs. So, if someone completely fills my needs, they fill me. They are in me, and if do the same for them, I am in them. Two people who perfectly meet each others needs can be considered one as they completely fill each other. There is no end to the building of bonds or meeting of needs. There is no end to union.
As our needs are met, including, and perhaps especially, to meet the needs of others, we fill the measure of our creation.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1. pg.146, Living Nonviolent Communication, Marshall Rosenberg.
2. pg.138, Living Nonviolent Communication, Marshall Rosenberg.
Life
To be or not to be is not the question. We are (the one writing, and those reading this, exist). To live or not to live; that is the question. A creation can exist without living (see Biology 101). 1
Life is both the drive of needs as well as the actions pursuant to meeting those needs. Needs move. Needs mobilize to express and satisfy themselves. Without the driving movement of our individual needs, we are not living. We choose how to best fill our needs. There are two plans for filling our needs, and we are always ever choosing one or the other. How man mobilizes to express and get his needs met determines whether he will have life abundantly, or merely exist.
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1 Well, my young friends, the biggest tragedy of life is not to live — not to function with your full soul, with your whole life, with enthusiasm, with spirit, with faith, with love. Lowell L. Bennion, “Overcoming Our Mistakes,” Tambuli, Jul 1981, 47 ~ "When death finds you, may it find you alive" - African proverb
Life is both the drive of needs as well as the actions pursuant to meeting those needs. Needs move. Needs mobilize to express and satisfy themselves. Without the driving movement of our individual needs, we are not living. We choose how to best fill our needs. There are two plans for filling our needs, and we are always ever choosing one or the other. How man mobilizes to express and get his needs met determines whether he will have life abundantly, or merely exist.
-----------------------------------------------------------------
1 Well, my young friends, the biggest tragedy of life is not to live — not to function with your full soul, with your whole life, with enthusiasm, with spirit, with faith, with love. Lowell L. Bennion, “Overcoming Our Mistakes,” Tambuli, Jul 1981, 47 ~ "When death finds you, may it find you alive" - African proverb
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