The Opposite of Pride is Joy

The greatest personal struggle I have in this life is overcoming pride. I used to think there was such a thing as good pride; righteous pride, which is the pride in keeping myself fit and clean, and in keeping my home up to repair and pleasant in appearance. Or such things as being "humbly" proud of my accomplishments, such as writing something meaningful that touches souls, for instance.

I mean, surely I could take pride in accomplishing things, as long as I remembered that God gave me the gifts to use them for good, so what good I did was to my merit. How else could I have any self-esteem if I never thought that anything I did was of value, and praiseworthy? I just had to make sure that I gave the glory to God, right?

I've had many discussions with others about this and we decided that there was a pride with a big "P" and one with a little "p," with them being the evil type that causes whole societies to crumble, and the type that is the pride in yourself that makes you want to do good things, respectively. That's entirely wrong.

After being knocked down pretty hard again recently, as usual, by pride, but not of any sort that could be called good (yet didn't merit a capital P either), I had to rethink this concept. I was at a point in my life that I thought all I was capable of having was "pride," because I certainly didn't think much of myself at all, so "Pride "was out of the question. How could I be "high and mighty" and due to be knocked down when I was already as low as I thought I could be.

Thinking it would make me humble, I had gotten wrapped up in trying to do good things for everyone around me. Sure, it felt good to do things for people, but it still left me empty and hating myself when I wasn't actively involved in service. Furthermore, I wasn't doing anything for myself- nothing good anyway.

There were a number of selfish behaviors, but eating a whole package of cookies isn't doing something for yourself. It's trying to escape yourself, and is a denial that you have any worth. I wouldn't hesitate to warn someone else how bad that was, but I excused myself because "those people want to live," and I didn't.

Ironically, I thought I had no pride of any sort, but I had the worst kind of Pride: the kind that tells you that you know better than anyone, including God, both what you can do to/for yourself, and what you are worth. Pride is not the opposite of pride. Come on, it's the same word already. Maybe there's some difference in the two concepts of big and little, but there's a lot of overlap; therefore not opposites.

Humility, and especially humiliation, alone is not the opposite of Pride either. Both are steps toward the truth, however. Think about it, we've all known someone who was proud of how humble they were. As funny as that is, it's a much bigger stumbling block than Pride itself. It makes you think you are conquering pride, but you are just disguising it.

There is only one way to be free of pride: you must becomne aware of how insignificant you really are. You must know that you are nothing. That is, that you are nothing, of yourself. There is not one thing you do in this entire existence that you could do entirely by yourself. Without the power of God, even the very molecules that make up your body would lose the bonds that hold them together, and disorganized and without cohesion, you would simple dissolve away.

Once you become aware of that and then recognize that, at the same time, you are divinely created and of infinite worth, you are on your way to being free of pride. I am a son of God, whose power is infinite, and He saw fit to create me, exactly as I am. While that is enough to feel that I have greatness, if only in my creation, I can take no pride in it. It is not my doing. I may take this form that He has given me and try to do what I want with it and think that I have done either great things, or evil things, but I could do none of it if He just withdrew His power from me completely.

Having reached this point of awareness of being entirely helpless and dependent on God for everything, I give my will to Him, to do with me as He will, and every moment becomes a miracle. Each breath is a testament to His Glory, every step forward a celebration of His greatness. If I stumble, it is because He allows it for my wisdom. If I do evil, it is only because He stills permits me life, and is patient to let the fire burn me, so I will know to respect it.

Now, I am almost there. As I learn to trust Him, and He sees fit to lead me to do anything of greatness, of any size, I finally learn the truth. I see what has been done, and I know that only by His power that it could be done, but He allowed my hand to do it, so that I could feel His power and know His glory. Then, and only then, I have joy. Joy in the goodness of the thing that has been done, and joy in the love He has for me that He will lend me his power to do good. I can feel both worthy and worthwhile, yet insignificant unless I am a tool in the Master's hand.

I am saved by my God and through the blood of Christ, no matter what I do. There is nothing I can do to accomplish that on my own. I can win nothing by the strength of my arm, but I can do anything when supported by the arm of God, and when I trust Him in all things.

It's not a fairy tale

Now, I'm not ready to say that I don't believe that "true love conquers all." That's not something that can really be assessed while you're still alive, and it's not happily ever after until the fat princess sings. In our very real world, we know a few stories of romantic connections that turned out well in the end, but we know endless stories of star-crossed lovers whose initial romantic bliss ended tragically.

Not all ends are necessarily tragic. They are dreadfully painful, but not tragic. These are the ones in which, despite finding true love and all the heady delights it promises, duty and honor are more important. Throughout history, many people have married for convenience, or to serve a familial responsibility, or sometimes to avert wars through the alliance that is formed, even though their hearts were desperately, gloriously and irrevocably given to another.

In the fairy tale version, the two lovers are separated, but stay true to each other in some manner until whatever magical, mystical thing occurs to reunite them in an eternal state of joy. Westley comes for Buttercup disguised as the Dread Pirate Roberts, because thanks to true love, even being dead a couple of times isn't enough to keep them apart. Does this never happen (except for the being dead part) in the real world? Are there no real happy endings? It probably happens far more than we realize, but the key is the remaining true part.

Once in a while, two people choose to shirk their responsibilities, run off together and it actually works out. Most of the time- not really. People who are that impetuous and undisciplined usually find the magic wearing off as soon as hunger and other facts of day-to-day existence make themselves felt. Prince Charming on his gleaming snow-white steed is much less appealing after you have to eat the horse because he didn't happen to have put in the time to learn a trade. Having a few babies on your hip and still having to go to the convenience store job while he "looks for work," is a pretty sure romance killer.

What is more likely is that the person who marries for duty, knowing their obligations, will devote themselves to making the best of things. They may carry the love of that person they feel "true love" with in their hearts, never really abandoning hope, but still determined to serve in the place where they are appointed. Who knows what will occur in this life, or the next? It is their belief in the next life, or their sense of duty to society that obligates them to stay in their situation as long as it is just rather than give in to their emotions.

The people that want to believe in fairy tales would say that it's a shame; that it's a waste to spend a life in that way rather than to fulfil their love. I recall a line in a mediocre song from the 70's: "It's so sad to belong to someone else when the right one comes along." Poppycock. What is sad is to throw away a family, or a kingdom, or your eternal soul for a mere selfish gratification.

To quote Miracle Max, "True love is the greatest thing in the world..." We are supposed to be in the world, but not of the world. True love IS the greatest thing, and some people never know it in this life, because it must be a mutual feeling of respect, charity, unselfishness and desire for the other's happiness, not for their body. Adultery is not true love. Fornication is not true love. True lovers are willing to sacrifice any earthly pleasure, property or emotion for each other. Too many are willing to give up what could be a wonderful exaltation of the relationship that is possible between a man and a woman for a mere moment's pleasure.

The portrayal of true love in the movie "The Princess Bride" is the ideal. The young man a woman put off the consummation of their love, because the man is going to earn a living so he can support a family. When he is thought dead, Buttercup remains chaste and faithful for ten years, and only agrees to marry the Prince when it seems certain that Westley will never come back, and because the Prince is deceiving her anyway.

Likewise, Westley can be assumed to have been celibate for his time in the crew of the Revenge, or else he is a phenomenal hypocrite for condemning Buttercup for "only" waiting ten years. The couple's virture is also implied to remain intact (or else be inconsistent) throughout the rest of the movie, and even makes a point of the marriage to Prince Humperdinck being not legal, and void, rather than just having Westley kill the Prince and take his bride, like most movies these days would.

Of course it's fiction and some would imply, outrageously unrealistic. So, why do we have such stories? Don't we want to emulate these ideals rather than the notion that love that isn't immediately fulfilled sexually is tragic. It may not be the popular view in today's hedonistic society to believe that we can live up to those standards, but we still want our heroines to be virtuous, and our heroes to be honorable.

Why do we sell ourselves short? If we keep teaching that true marital fidelity is impossible, we will raise a generation that sees no purpose in marriage, and soon afterward the family will be an outdated concept, rather than the basic building block of society, without which there will be no society.

Sure we fall short of the standard, but that's no reason pull it down lower. We should rather aspire to live a higher law. Changing your goals to be easier is not the same as achieving them. I think we do want to believe that virtue is possible, and that's why we keep telling the stories. I believe in true love, but unless it is chaste, unselfish, humble and honorable it can't conquer anything.

Which Christ is the real Christ?

One of the latest attacks I have experienced from people who want me damned for my beliefs as a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the claim I follow a false Jesus. As a logical debate, there are numerous fallacies with anyone making such an accusation, but religion is not often required to fit the requirements of logic.

I believe that faith is first and foremost, and that some things must be believed that don't appear to fit logic, but I also have found that those things cannot be discounted only on the basis of a logical argument. Most of what I believe is also entirely logical as well as meeting the requirements of faith. Maybe the only belief I have that cannot be supported logically, is the simple belief in God. I know God lives, but I can't prove it to anyone. That requires faith entirely.

Beyond logic and faith, there remains only scriptural verification. For the sake of those who do not accept all the scriptures I recognize as divine canon, I will amend that as Biblical verification. Not all things can be verified by the Bible, of course, no matter what version of Judeo-Christian theology one espouses. The only recourse then, is to use the process of elimination. If something is clearly and unequivocally eliminated by the Bible, it must be rejected.

The Bible is an exceptionally ambiguous document at times, and so that standard can rarely be met. In the abscence of certainty, logic and faith should be relied on as well, with faith being the last word.

It is not my intent to apply that rigor to the question of: whose Christ is the right Christ (or for that matter, whose Messiah?)? I both question anyone's ability to prove that their version is true to the exclusion of all others, and that the details are even that critical. As far as I have been able to discern, no one challenges these type of beliefs to facilitate the salvation of anyone else, but only does so in an attempt to condemn them. I am not interested in condemning anyone.

I am just as capable of throwing doubt on someone else's version as they are mine. I may even choose to look at some comparisons in a future post. At this time, I am only trying to establish that no person on this earth, unless they claim to be a prophet, has the right, the authority, or the justification to dictate to all others the definative description, origin or mission of Jesus Christ, much less the nature and purpose of God, in general.

I have seen numerous scriptural passages that supposedly prove one point or another, or that claim to disprove my beliefs, but none of them really establish either of those premises. I don't propose to produce a list of my own verses to try and prove or disprove anything. I believe the scriptures contain the information we need to understand God's plan for us, but to try and discern or dispense truth without the guidance of the Spirit is hopeless and foolish.

The real Christ knows who He is and He knows who His sheep are. I have beliefs about the answers to those questions, and I am satisfied with those answers. I follow those beliefs and allow all others to worship as they see fit. I feel the evangelical spirit to share my beliefs, but I am not about to try and dictate where anyone is going after this life based on any set of rules. That is not for me or any living human to decide.

Divine Inspiration

It amazes me when someone is offended or wants to argue with me when I say I believe this nation and its laws were divinely inspired. I'm not exactly sure how it is harming anyone for me to believe that. I don't assert that the United States is a "Christian nation," but it does respect all religions, including Christianity, and to deny that the founders and framers of the U.S. Constitution considered Christian values is asinine.

So maybe a few of the Founders were Deists, or even Atheists, or whatever religion. That fact is a better evidence and testimony of their determination to make this a nation where all religions or no religions could be practiced freely with no interference from the state. Do you want to argue whether there was an establishment clause calling for separation of church and state? Okay, fine, have it your way- the Founders DID want separation of church and state: they wanted the state to stay completely out of questions of religion and religious practice.

The assertion that what I believe is offensive to someone simply because I am allowed to practice it is ludicrous...sticks and stones. To go further and allow litigation, and especially legislation to accomodate the individual who is so thin-skinned that they can't maintain their disbelief without eliminating everything that might make them doubt it, is a complete denial of the principles on which this nation is founded.

Not Christian principles, not Deist, Atheist, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, or any other specific belief system. "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." The enemies of God get us hung on the first part which is highly debatable and open to multiple interpretations, when we should be hammering on the second part "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

That is completely plain and unambiguous. That is an absolute statement. No law prohibiting free exercise of religion means NO LAWS. It is clearly unconstitutional for Congress to make any law that concerns (or should I says respects?) religion. None. Because any law that even addresses any aspect of religion is going to either show favoritism (respect and establish) to one belief system or prohibit the free exercise of another, or more likely, both.

You too, Atheists, yours is belief system: you believe there is no God. Until you can prove there is no God, it is only a belief. No one else should be made subject to your belief system, and you should not be subject to ours. You may seek legal redress if you feel that you have had your rights and your freedom violated, but you CAN'T. MAKE. LAWS....unless you eliminate (which is the same as ignore) the United States Constitution.

Those words "United States Constitution" are sacred to me. I believe that the Founders were inspired in creating it, to preserve the rights and the freedoms of all beliefs, and all creeds, ethnicites, etc. I would fight and die to protect your right to belief nothing, or anything, so how about you quit trying to take my rights?

Are Jesus and the devil brothers?

Worded that way, I can easily say, "No, they are not." However, they were brothers, even as Jesus Christ is the eldest brother, and greatest of all of the children of God, which children we are as well. We compare to Him somewhere less than the size of the Earth compares to a blue giant star like Antares YouTube - Size of Earth, yet He is our brother, nonetheless. The devil, Satan, who once was Lucifer, a son of the morning (Isaiah 14:12), who rebelled against God and all those other fallen angels who are now demons to Satan are so much less than we are as to be as close to nothing as can exist.

They are cast out completely from the presence of God and though they have a time during our mortal existence to be allowed to try us, their ultimate fate is complete oblivion. To comprehend such a tragedy is beyond our ability, despite our attempts in theater and literature to try and imagine the worst possible scenarios our minds can concoct through some strange compulsion. Tragedy it is, but one of their own choosing. It is plain: they rebelled.

Now, consider what that means. Can one rebel against a body of which they were never a part? There are many things which God created, in His wisdom, that do not live up to the divinity of their creation, yet they are still God's creations, because there is nothing which was created that He did not create. How can Lucifer not be one of God's creations?

Could he create himself? Would that not make him greater than Jesus Christ who was created by God? Wouldn't that place him equal to God as a creator himself? Which is the more logical? Which is the more blasphemous? Yes, we of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe, as Isaiah said, that Satan was created by God as a brother of all living and dead, but he forsook that birthright and was thrown down. He is no prodigal son. He will not return to his Father in Heaven. He is not of us and no brother of our Savior Jesus Christ, nor will he or any who followed him partake of the grace and redemption of He who died for those of us who chose to follow our Father's plan.

Therefore, however you choose to word the question, I definitively answer: No, Jesus and the devil are not brothers.

Who has the best health care?

One of the key tactics in the battle of health care reform has been to make certain claims and accusations about the merits or deficiencies of various health delivery systems in the U.S. and abroad. Proponents of the constantly morphing behemoth making its way through the convolutions of the American legislative process are quick to cite the advantages of the European, Cuban and Canadian versions and tout examples of satisfied participants as proof that those systems work since, if they didn't, how could anyone have a good story to tell about their experiences with them?

The opponents have sadly chosen to just be reactionary and claim there is nothing so bad about the current American system that it requires such draconian transformations, and simultaneously denying horror stories from our own shores, while relating the ills of those other nations' health services.

As is often the case, the truth is not strongly on either side.

It's shameful that we always fall for the punditry that extremists of any ilk use to inflame us into following their viewpoints and rejecting any others without so much as hearing them. Here in the land of trying to find tolerance for everything and avoiding stereotypes at all costs, we are still easily tricked into divisive regional, racial, cultural and ideological prejudices that are then used to support that "theirs could never be as good as ours" or "vulgar America needs to aspire to the cultural superiority and enlightenment of other nations" in order to manipulate our emotions before our common sense has a chance to kick in.

Here's a bold statement: You can get excellent health care anywhere in the world that has a system for delivering health care. It's true. You can get great care in England, or Canada, or Australia, or Germany, China or Cuba; heck, even in the United States in a V. A. hospital. There may be better odds of it in some than others, but then that's still pretty subjective to each person's view of great care.

What's more, it's pretty much a certainty that anyone in any of those places that is really in need of medical attention will get it regardless of their ability to pay. None of them are able to do it without lines, or limitations of some sort, and they do generally tend to treat the sickest first, meaning that the rest are not going to get what they want as fast as they want unless they grease a few palms.

No matter how free a system is, there will always be those with affluence that can move ahead in the line or be plucked out of it entirely to get preferential treatment, but due to the inherent ethics of health care workers, this is far less prevalent than in any related industry. One of the issues that have been discussed in the wake of the Haitian earthquakes is whether American citizens who are victims there should get preferential treatment by American aid workers on the ground there.

It's a strictly academic debate, because the reality is that the type of people that are there doing that job are not the type that are going to care what anyone tells them about whom to help first. They are going to focus on who has the greatest immediate need. It is in their training; it is in their character, and it is endemic to the profession as a whole. Profiteers and bigots exist, but they are pushed to the fringes and ostracized wherever they are recognized.

The reason you can get great care anywhere is because that's what care-givers do. They do the best they can for everyone that comes into their care regardless of the resources at their disposal. Obviously, there are factors such as moral judgments; racial, sexual and cultural bigotry; greed, burn-out and elitism that affect the individual health care worker's quality of care, but those are so secondary to the primary imperative of those who choose this work that the desire to ease suffering is the great equalizer, not only between individuals, but between nations and their health care systems.

This is not at all to say that the American system or any other in the world does not need improvement or that access issues can be comparatively better in other nations than in the U. S. There is a definite need for reform, but the reform should not only be made based in the reality that the issue is getting the infirm and the healers together, but that once that is done the care will be delivered as compassionately, efficiently and as fairly as can be done, wherever in the world it happens. Anecdotes of good care anywhere are irrelevant because they are the rule, not the exception.

Critical Mass

It would actually have been a better pun before the election when some of us viewed the outcome as critical to the survival of the republic. Now that Scott Brown is the winner, the Senate election in Massachusetts is not the critical juncture anymore, but the situation is still approaching crisis.

For all the denial of Obama Administration officials and supporters that Senator Brown's victory was in any way a referendum on anything but local politics in the state of Massachusetts, or at worst, a protest vote against the failure of the party in power to accomplish their stated objectives, polling among Brown supporters indicates exactly the message that voters were making a statement to the federal government that they are opposed to the health care reform bill, and more particularly to the tactics being used by the current administration and Congress to push it and other changes through.

The merits of that or any other bit of legislation are no longer important or even worth consideration. The methods of our Congress are so similar to the behavior of the Parliament of Great Britain toward the American colonies that it is unthinkable that revolution of some sort will not take place unless we are not the same sort of people that inhabited this continent in the 1770's. How fitting it is that the first shots in this revolution were fired in the same state as the one that led to the formation of this republic.

One could go back to the fall victories in Virginia and New Jersey and point to them as indicators of the direction of the electorate away from the policies of the Progressives, but it wasn't until the shock of Massachusetts that the will of the people was felt as strongly as the stand of the Minutemen on Lexington Green that resulted in the "shot heard 'round the world."

The comparison is not overly dramatic. The repercussions are likely to be every bit as transformative as those of the American Revolution, particularly if the powers in D.C. react in the same manner to this uprising as the Crown did following Lexington/Concord; not in the sense of an armed put-down, but rather in failing to recognize that the majority of the populace are not content to be meek subjects to their wills- accepting the supposedly benevolent dictates of the Great Fathers in Washington without the checks and balances that the Founders built into the Constitution for this very purpose.

Just as the colonists evolved an awareness that foreign rule was no longer in their best interest, the people of the today's United States are slowly waking up to the recognition that a bloated government serves its own ends first and has become an entity unto itself- separate and alien from the common American and viewing us as indifferently as the Lords of Parliament across a gulf wider than the Atlantic Ocean.

We've had our tea parties and exchanged political salvoes. Right now, the Progressive leaders are holed up in Washington like the redcoats in Boston pondering their next moves, while militia arrive daily to oppose them. They'd better pay attention to the sounds of axes and shovels on "Bunker Hill" as they consider their own critical decisions. To paraphrase Rahm Emmanuel, crisis can sometimes be a useful thing.