14 April 2008

Post 113

Last night, I stumbled across something Brigham Young said that I've never heard before. His word choice was initially my favorite part, but, once I got past his awesome wordage, I realized that he's actually saying something pretty remarkable. Here it is:

Want of confidence is the parent of moral imbecility and intellectual weakness (Journal of Discourses 10:20).

See, I'm not sure I've ever seen the word "imbecility" before, so that certainly excited me, and "moral imbecility" is my new favorite phrase (defeating by a substantial margin "hormonal idiocy," which was coined by one of my high-school seminary teachers). So caught up was I in the vocabulary of this statement that I missed the meaning entirely until I had reread it several times.

This is a mighty bold statement--perhaps not in comparison to other things Brother Brigham said, but by most any other standard. And my favorite part is that it isn't condemnatory, just insightful. If President Young's statement is true (and I accept it as so), then it is a marvelous insight into human character: if you are struggling to keep your virtue in tact or if you can't manage to sort out your thoughts and solve various problems, then you're probably lacking confidence.

It's fascinating to me the way sins and vices and weaknesses interrelate. (Is that sick? I hope not....) I often find that, if I'm struggling with a particularly stubborn bad habit that I just can't seem to rid myself of, it's usually rooted in a larger more fundamental problem. Most vices, I think, are mere symptoms of larger problems and can't rightly be considered problems in and of themselves; in this regard, Mr. Young's statement is very helpful.

So let's put forth hypothetically that you or I or anyone--someone is an immoral imbecile and an intellectual putz. President Young claims that that someone is lacking confidence. So what shall our someone do? How shall he or she increase their confidence?

Wait! What's that? Did you hear it? I heard a scripture in there somewhere--something about confidence waxing strong in the presence of God. Ringin' any bells for you?

So, using Brother Brigham's statement as jumping-off point, let's climb up the ladder of authority a ways and consult the Savior Himself. Christ said:

Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God...(Doctrine and Covenants 121:45).
So, cultivate love and virtue, and you'll become confident in the presence of God and thereby avoid moral imbecility and intellectual weakness. Seems--straightforward enough.

I love the cyclic patterns that the gospel runs in. Here, for example, we see that

Love+Virtue --> Confidence --> Virtue+Wisdom

Now, I'm no logician or chemist--I'm not really sure how to manipulate mathematically an equation that shows yields instead of equalities--but it seems to me to be not too far fetched to say that, if you're lacking virtue and/or wisdom, just increase your love toward people in general, and the increase in love will combine with whatever little virtue you have, compound your confidence, and then your virtue will increase and you will gain wisdom, which will hopefully encourage you to love more, which increase of love will combine with your increased virtue, compound again your confidence, and yield even more virtue and wisdom. Thus onward and upward on up to perfection!

So, my admonition for today: love more. It'll benefit you, and the world could really use it anyway.

7 comments:

  1. Love is very important and works side by side with service. I heard a story from someone in some point and time and he said he had a friend who thought service is not service unless it's inconvenant and would go out of his way to make things as inconvenant as possible. I think it's more to do with your aditude toward that person you are providing the service for. If you do it with kindness and love instead of resentment you get more out of it. The greatest sacrifice of Love is the sacrifice that was given to each of us by Jesus. he did it out of love without any thought of reward. When we provide service it should not be with any thought of reward or reconiition it should be with love. To sum it all up as you said "love more".

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  2. So . . . since I've been lacking confidence lately, I'm a moral imbecile and I'm intellectually weak? Or I just will be eventually? ;)

    Actually, I was discussing lack of confidence with a friend the other day. And while I do agree with everything you and Brother Brigham have put forth here, our discussion actually drifted toward how lack of confidence can also point to a lack of trust. Not just a lack of trust in ourselves, but lack of trust in the Lord and His plan for us. (That felt like a slap in the face until I realized: "Hey, wait--she's right. I'm so dead set on MY plan for me that I'm not making allowances about how there might be, you know, a better and more ETERNAL plan that doesn't allow for MY plan right now.")

    In addition, I have also noticed how much of the gospel works on cyclical principles and how Heavenly Father helps you to continually improve by continually rewarding you as long as you are putting in the effort. I think we often get so caught up in the spiraling-downward cycles we've been taught about that we don't put nearly as much emphasis on the spiraling-upward cycles as we should.

    And phew, I felt like I just practically wrote an entire blog entry in your comments section . . .

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  3. I used to be one of those persons who thought in regards to service that harder=better, but I now realize that service is often simply doing something for someone else that they can't do for themselves. I have a car, so I give rides to people who don't. This rarely takes any special effort from me, but those I help are always really grateful because they have been enabled to accomplish something they could not have otherwise done. Sure, it didn't require much of me, and I'm certainly not the only person in this town who owns a car, but the service is in no way diminished by its easiness or by the fact that some one else may have just as easily given it.

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  4. Woah, trippy. I wrote a comment and then pushed the "Publish Your Comment" button, and a comment from Confuzzled appeared magically from the nefarious cyber-ether.

    Uh. So my LAST comment was addressed to Lola, who, as I wrote, appeared to be the only person who had commented.

    So, for you, Confuzzled, I don't think lack of confidence must of necessity beget moral imbecility and intellectual weakness, you just can't be a confident moral imbecile. And, yes, upward spirals are SO much more pleasant than the downward ones; 'tis pity we only ever focus on the half-empty glass....

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  5. .

    Brilliant insight, both of you.

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  6. BRAVO! That's now as much a favorite concept of mine as: Faith =

    Understanding/RighteousDesire -> Action -> Spirit Borne Witness -> Understanding/RighteousDesire

    That's been my number two favorite, but now it's my Co-Number2-Favoirite. Number one is the plan of salvation is more about becoming like Heavenly Father than it is about a series of circles showing the location of the sprit and body taken together with the Gospel of Jesus Christ as the vehicle for said transformation.

    By the way, "appeared magically from the nefarious cyber-ether" is now ranked amoungst my favorite Schemterlingisms... it's almost as good as the potent but little known "thank you for saving my dying little joke." Do you suppose that the cyber-ether works in combination with the closet nether? Perhaps that which consumes wallets and left socks is the same as that which eats emails? They must both be regulated by the postMaster Demon. Next time my billfold is missing I'm sending eronious electronic communications till the void is full and has to start regurgitating.

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  7. Wow... Another awesome post. I applaud you! Very insightful!

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