"You’re Going to Be Okay...But"

On the Happiness of Mortality

By Elder Robert S. Wood

Keynote address, 13^th Annual Evergreen conference, September 13, 2003

INTRODUCTION

Some years ago, I was invited to fly in an airplane over the Saudi Arabian desert. During this flight, our airplane needed to refuel another aircraft. We were above and to the left of the other aircraft. There was extended a snorkel to the other aircraft in order to pass the necessary fuel. Having ended the process, our pilot retracted the refueling line and radioed to the other pilot, "Why don't you come a little closer because some VIPs are on board." As I looked out the window at the other aircraft I thought, "Boy, it’s plenty close right now." Nonetheless, the other aircraft began to come closer to us.

Suddenly, one of my associates yelled, "They're going to hit us!" Apparently, both our pilot and the other pilot realized at the same time that a disaster was imminent. The pilot of the other aircraft, therefore, turned his plane to the right and began to pull away. Our pilot pulled his to the left at an angle, also seeking to pull away. But in the event, the right wing of our aircraft and the left wing of the other aircraft collided, and we immediately lost power throughout much of our aircraft. At that moment, our pilot said to us, "You're going to be okay, but . . ."

BUT – certainly the most terrifying word in any language. Our pilot said that we were going to have to jump out of the aircraft, and I said, "You mean, jump from up here?!" Then he began to instruct us as to how to put on and use the parachutes.

Many years before this incident, we were all sitting in a great council, the Council in Heaven. Our Father-in-Heaven said to us that we were going to be born into mortality and that we would be okay, BUT . . . He indicated that there would be many difficulties in life. He would not promise a life without suffering, without tests, without challenges. In truth, these difficulties would be central experiences in the purposes of the mortal experience and the ultimate passage from mortality into immortality. Mortality, with all its challenges, was explained as a necessary condition for perfectibility, i.e., to become like our Father-in-Heaven.

I. THE TEST OF MORTALITY

Fundamentally, it was most probably explained, we would confront three
types of challenges. First, the challenge of sustaining life itself in mortality. This would include not only the task of providing food and clothes and shelter for ourselves and our families, but also coping with natural calamities—floods, hunger, and many other disasters. But in addition to these, each of us in mortality would carry the mortal burdens of our own bodily and mental states, some of which were conferred upon us through generations of genetic coding and social conditioning.

Second, we would face the challenge of living with the choices of others. We would have to live not only with our own choices but the choices that others would make. They would do some things intentionally or inadvertently that would affect, sometimes in very fundamental ways, our life. At times, they would do stupid things. At times they would do wicked things. Whatever might be the case, that which they would do might not only influence our circumstances, but the life of generations to come.

Third, we would face the challenge of contending with our own choices. We might do things that would be imprudent and sometimes just wrong. We might deceive ourselves and rationalize and take actions which would ultimately complicate our life, and, unhappily, we would not only complicate our life but would complicate the lives of others. Worse, we would complicate our life even more by the failure to keep the commandments of God and to follow the directions that He would give us for our own progress and happiness.

Many at this council in Heaven were so concerned by the prospect of such a life of trials and of difficult choices and the ensuing consequences, that they were susceptible to the enticing words of Satan. Satan essentially promised in that pre-mortal council that he would provide, first of all, an escape from these difficult challenges and pain, and secondly, that he would remove from us the burden of liberty. Some were so attracted by this proposition that it is written that one-third of the host of Heaven followed Satan.

But we who are here today choose the challenges as well as the possibilities of mortality. We accepted life without accepting the escapes that Satan offered. We understood, at least abstractly, that life would be difficult and at times excruciatingly painful. And, yet, it is recorded that we shouted for joy.

Now that we have gone from abstract to existential understanding of the promise and the challenges of life, would we today still shout for joy?

I would counsel that we not become so overwhelmed by our challenges, so distracted by the darkness, that we miss the joys of the present life, the glories of mortality.

The prophet Lehi speaks of life as a "compound in one." Without loss, there will be no gain; without bitter, we cannot appreciate the sweet; without error, there is no correction; without justice, no mercy; without death, no life; without suffering, no atonement. "For it must needs be, that there is an opposition in all things..." (2 Nephi 2: 11). If we are to be free to exercise our moral agency, we must pay a price: in uncertainty, error, on occasion subjection to the injustice and stupidities of our fellow beings as they are subject to ours; the inevitable decay of mortality which is the prelude to incorruptibility and immortality. Therein says Lehi lies the pathway to joy, if we but accept the only guide who will help us negotiate the pitfalls of the journey – Jesus Christ.

There are three keys to the present joy:

1. Gratitude

2. Repentance

3. Service

II. GRATITUDE

Never underestimate the importance of a grateful heart. Amulek pleaded with the Zoramites "that ye contend no more against the Holy Ghost, but that ye receive [Him] and take upon you the name of Christ; that ye humble yourselves ...And worship God in whatsoever place ye may be in, in spirit and in truth; and that ye live in thanksgiving daily for the many mercies and blessings which He doth bestow upon you." (Alma 34:38)

Let me share with you some items in my personal bag of gratitude -and happiness - the gift of sight and sound, the glories of language, the marvels of creation, the legitimate pleasures of the senses, the joy of work, the ineffable warmth of family and friends, and the feast of the Word of God.

A. THE GIFT OF SIGHT AND SOUND: What a marvelous product of our electronic age is the little instruments we call the Walkman. At minimal cost and less inconvenience, I can travel to the "Grand Ole Oprey" with the Judds and to the newly reunited city of Berlin to hear Leonard Bernstein conduct Beethoven's ninth symphony, "Ode to Joy."

I once gave a Walkman to my father who had hearing loss. At about the same time, he also had cataracts removed from his eyes. My, how he appreciated what he heard and what he saw. His patriarchal blessing said that he would live so long as life was sweet to him. He took this to mean that to live life is to seek the sweet in life.

B. THE GLORIES OF LANGUAGE: I am further grateful for the glories of speech and communication. Many have noted that it is speech that reflects and reinforces our humanity and the potential of our divinity. How I love the cadences, the shades, the forms of speech as they communicate the deepest desires, hopes, fears, and challenges of mortal man traveling along the path to immortality. I have been thrilled by the words of William Wordsworth in his visionary poem where he perceives us entering into morality "trailing clouds of glory." I have been stirred, as I'm sure many of you have been, by his poetic expression of recollections from early childhood, "Intimations of Immortality:"

There was a time when meadows, grove, and stream,
The earth and every common sight,
To me did seem
Appareled in celestial light
The glory and the freshness of a dream.

Our birth is but a sleep and a forgetting:
The Soul that rises with us, our life's Star,
Hath elsewhere its setting,
And cometh from afar:
Not in entire forgetfulness,
And not in utter nakedness,
But trailing clouds of glory do we come
From God, who is our home:
Heaven lies about us in our infancy!

But then Wordsworth sadly notes that this splendid vision often fades as we get caught up in the tasks of call adult life:

The Youth...by this vision splendid
Is on his way attended;
At length the Man perceives it die away,
And fade into the light of common day.

And yet, he notes, as did another poet, Eliza R. Snow, something whispers that we are strangers here and have a home elsewhere:

O joy! that in our embers
Is something that doth live,
That nature yet remembers
What was so fugitive!
The thoughts of our past years in me doth breed
Perpetual benediction...

C. THE MARVELS OF CREATION: And then there are the beauties, the grandeur, the diversity of created nature. How often I have gazed across the wide vistas of the desert, at the majesty of snow-capped mountains, the intimacy of oceans coves, the delicacy of a rose bush, the engineering marvel of a spider web. I can well understand that at the prospect of these visions, I did indeed shout for joy that I was to be sent by my Father into mortality.

D. THE PLEASURES OF THE SENSES: And, again, in my bag of gratitude, I cannot underestimate the splendid joy of a chocolate bar and an ice cream sundae. Have some of us become so jaded, so distracted by the challenges of life that these remarkable pleasures are forgotten?

E. THE JOY OF WORK: I am also grateful for daily labor. Once of the prices of mortality is that we should labor by the sweat of our brow. If at times we may see this as a curse, it is less a curse than a glorious consequence of living. To labor, to exert our mind and body, to struggle both beside and with nature and fellow man, what possibilities lie therein. We may on occasion be unemployed but we need never be out of work. We must see the vision of our routines and do the routine with vision.

F. THE WARMTH OF FAMILY AND FRIENDS: In my bag of gratitude are found those people who have touched my life, transformed it, and made it sweet. As a young assistant professor at the University of Virginia, I was laboring in my office one beautiful Saturday morning in autumn to write a manuscript. There passed by my door an older colleague, who came in and inquired whether or not I had ever heard of a certain man. I admitted that I had not. He exclaimed, "You have never heard of Professor X?! A man who in the 1920s and 1930s had been a leader in the field of political science and sociology, who had written hundred of articles and scores of books, who was honored with innumerable awards for his work?!" I again confessed that I had never heard of him. To which my wise colleague responded, "Precisely! And neither has anyone else - despite all his books and professional accomplishments. Go home, gather your family, and enjoy this fall day." As the years roll by, I realize how precious my extended family, my friends and colleagues, my fellow Latter-day Saints, my brothers and sisters are. Let us rejoice in our fellow travelers on this great journey of mortal life.

G. THE FEAST OF THE WORD OF GOD: Of all the riches of mortality nothing gives greater joy, comfort, guidance, and peace than the dialogue between man and God. With Lehi, "my soul delighteth in the scriptures, and my heart pondereth them." (2 Nephi 4:15) With what raptures can the scriptures transport us. Scriptures are not simply the word of God, but they are the words of God as transmitted by mortal men, flesh and blood people with weaknesses and strength, possibilities and limitations, like each of us. Nothing is so thrilling as to see this interaction between man in mortality and immortal god.

Each of us, as moved by the Holy Ghost, may for the profit of our families record our own confrontation with the eternal within the daily bounds of mortal life. A son of good friend of my wife and me contracted Lou Gehrig disease in his thirties. He had a loving wife and children and was a good husband and father. He continued to watch over his family and carry out his daily tasks even as his physical capabilities disappeared. Finally reduced to communicating through his computer by blinking his eyes, he kept a record of his reflections for his family. On the day he passed away, he look out the window: the sun was shining and the birds singing. He wrote with the blink of his eyes, “Oh, what a glorious day!” and then passed into eternity. His writing, as his life, constitute sacred scripture for his family.

As Lehi noted, he wrote his own such experiences "for the learning and the profit of [his] children." If we have this vision and live in harmony with the Spirit, we may share the prophetic experiences of those who we call prophets and we may, as Moses prayed, ourselves be prophets within own stewardship. (Numbers 11:9)

Do you recall the movie with Robin Williams and Robert de Niro, The Awakening? It concerns a hospital largely peopled by individuals who through disease had lost their ability to relate to the life around them. Through persistence and experimentation, the physician was able to bring them back into life. These patients were revived from the prison imposed by encephalitis and saw and experienced life, as it were, for the first time. What exuberance and joy there was to recover the world of mortality. How can we, then, reject or devalue such a life?

The Lord in the 59th section of the Doctrine and Covenants explicitly condemned those who fail to show gratitude and acknowledge His hand in their many blessings. On another occasion, He promised: "And he who receiveth all things with thankfulness shall be made glorious; and the things of this earth shall be added unto him, even an hundred fold, yea more." (D&C 78:19)

III. REPENTANCE

After gratitude, I would note repentance as a key to happiness. Ultimately, happiness depends on faith in Christ unto repentance. That faith implies that we not only believe that He is the Savior of Mankind, the Son of the living God, but that we are prepared to trust in Him completely, to abandon the old self ( yes, even the grouchy old self), and to yield to the promptings of the Holy Spirit so that we may have a new heart and a renewed mind.

Repentance means, in the words of the prophets, a "mighty change of heart," a willingness to choose the right, an energetic effort to put things right, and a commitment to endure in keeping the right. Through the atonement of Christ, made operative in our lives through sacred covenants and ordinances, we will then triumph over the circumstances of our lives and achieve that peace that lies within - a peace which is at the core of happiness.

Even the ancient pagan philosophers understood that happiness is not determined by that which surrounds us but by that which is within us. The first century Greek essayist and chronicler of the lives of the famous Greeks and Romans, Plutarch, observed that a key to contented living is the ability to take the circumstances of our lives and seek to magnify that which edifies and to reduce the impact of the negative. This depends less on what is happening to us than who we are. As he observed:

It is the shoe that bends along with the foot, not the other way around; and likewise...dispositions mould life...It follows that we should purify our innate well of contentment and then external things will be in harmony with us too...It is our job, if we are sensible, to accommodate ourselves to whatever fortune deals us and to allocate everything to a place where, as each situation arises, if it is congruent, we can maximize its benefits, and if it is unwelcome, we can minimize its harm. (Plutarch, Essays, 215-216)

Finally, this "innate well of contentment," if it is to be ever renewed and ever fresh, must center on Christ. With this living water, we may truly understand and accept the challenges and tribulations of mortal existence and assert rational control over our destiny. We will be prepared for the untoward events that will surely occur in our lives and face them without fear.

The French philosopher and mathematician, Blaise Pascal (1623-62) wrote, "There is a virtuous fear which is the effect of faith and a vicious fear which is the product of doubt and distrust. The former leads to hope as relying on God in whom we believe; the latter inclines to despair, as not relying upon God, in whom we do not believe. Persons of one character fear to lose God; those of the other character fear to find him."

What are the conditions of such faith and such "virtuous fear?" In the Lectures on Faith prepared under the direction of the Prophet Joseph Smith, we read,

From the first existence of man, the faith necessary unto the enjoyment of life and salvation never could be obtained without the sacrifice of all earthly things...But those who have not made this sacrifice to God do not know that the course which they pursue is well pleasing in his sight; for whatever may be their belief or their opinion, it is a matter of doubt and uncertainty in their mind; and where doubt and uncertainty are there faith is not, not can it be. For doubt and faith do not exist in the same person at the same time; so that persons whose minds are under doubts and fears cannot have unshaken confidence; and where unshaken confidence is not there faith is weak; and where faith is weak the persons will not be able to contend against all the opposition, tribulations, and afflictions which they will have to encounter in order to be heirs of God, and joint heirs with Christ Jesus; and they will grow weary in their minds, and the adversary will have power over them and destroy them. (Lecture Sixth)

With the understanding and inner transformation born of such faith, we are prepared to act rather than simply react to the challenges of life. Indeed, the first fruits of such faith is charity and a forgiving heart. Not even the inadvertent evils and ill will of others may then shatter us.

It is this understanding of the nature of life and this view of faith that is reflected in Christ's counsel to his Apostles, "And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell. Are not two sparrows sold for a farthing? and one of them shall not fall on the ground without your Father. But the very hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear ye not therefore, ye are of more value than many sparrows." (Matthew 10:28-31)

And so, He who was about to undergo the agony of Gethsemane and Golgotha blessed his Apostles, "Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you: not as the world giveth, give I unto you. Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid." (John 14:27)

The resurrected Christ in latter days has reiterated to his followers, "Learn of me, and listen to my words: walk in the meekness of my spirit, and you shall have peace in me." (D&C 19:23)

ON NOT LOOKING BACK: Once we have put our trust in Christ and with broken and contrite spirit allowed the Holy Ghost to bring about the mighty change of our hearts and to renew our minds, it is incumbent on us not to look back to the old man or woman, the former habits and attitudes, the reprobate and bitter way of life.

Orpheus, the famous mythological Greek musician, was reputed to be able through his music to move trees and charm wild animals He:

made the moveless trees to run,
made the rivers halt their flow,
made the lion, hind's fell foe [The deer's deadly foe],
side by side with her to go,
made the hare accept the hound
subdued now by the music's sound.

When his wife died, however, he himself could not be consoled. "Though his song all things subdued, it could not calm the master's mood." So, "down to hell [hades] he went for love."

His song subdued Cerberus, the 3-headed guard dog at the gates of the underworld; caused the vultures to suspend their grim task of tearing at the liver of the giant Tityus; soothed Tantalus, who was eternally seeking to quench his thirst by the water just beyond his reach; and elicited sympathy from the Furies, the mythological spirits of punishment.

At last he confronted the monarch of the dead, Pluto, who in tearful voice said:

We yield.

Let him take with him his wife,
By song redeemed and brought to life.
But let him too this law obey,
Look not on her by the way
Until from night she reaches day."

But, alas,

close to bounds of night, Orpheus backward turned his sight and, looking, lost and killed her there.

The moral drawn from this tale by the Roman philosopher Ancius Boethius(c. a.d. 475-525) is both poignant and timely:

Whoever seeks the upward way
Lift your mind into the day;
For who gives in and turns his eye
Backward to darkness from the sky,
Loses while he looks below
All that up with him may go.
(The Consolation of Philosophy, pp. 113-115)

Recall the story of Lot and his wife as they fled Sodom and Gomorrah:

The Angels said to Lot: "Arise, take thy wife, and thy two daughters...lest thou be consumed in the iniquity of the city." But, they cautioned, "Look not behind thee."
As it says in Genesis 19, however, "his wife looked back from behind him, and she became a pillar of salt."

Harking back to Genesis and this incident, the mortal Messiah commented:

"They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noah entered into the ark, and all the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise, also as it was in the day of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded; but the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven and destroyed them all."

In the day of commitment and of judgement, Jesus exhorted, let us not "return back." As He said, "Remember Lot's wife. Whosoever shall seek to save his life shall lose it; and whosoever shall lose his life shall preserve it." (Luke 17)

In the last day as in the day of Noah and of Lot, the neglectful, the wayward, and the inattentive will continue in their routine tasks and occupations as if they constituted the whole of life.

One must break utterly with the old life. Backward looks of nostalgia and morbid remembrance will not save that life and will kill eternal life.

IV. SERVICE

The final key, if joy is to abound, is the Christ-like service which is the fruit of faith and repentance and a manifestation of our hope. It is in the consistent attempt to do good and to bless others that we are able to transcend the troubles of our own heart. And thus the Lord commands, "For behold, it is not meet that I should command in all things; for he that is compelled in all things, the same is a slothful and not a wise servant; wherefore he receiveth no reward. Verily I say, men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward." (D&C 58:26-28)

V. HOPE

Such faith, such repentance, such service, such gratitude keep hope bright even in the darkest hour. As Paul wrote, "And hope maketh not ashamed; because the love of God shall abound in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given unto us." (Romans 5:4) And, again, "For we are saved by hope." (Romans 8:24) Hence, as he counseled, "Be not moved from the hope of the gospel."(Col.1:23) As Nephi exhorted, "Ye must press forward with a steadfastness in Christ, having a perfect brightness of hope, and a love of God and of all men...Endure to the end...Ye shall have eternal life." (II Nephi 31:20)

VI. HAPPY STILL

Moroni, as have all the prophets, portrays the judgment as the natural consequence of our mortal lives in which the tendencies of our lives are magnified. He makes clear that we through faith in Christ, repentance, service and a grateful heart may find happiness in this life and that, having established the fundamentals of happiness now, joy will be ours eternally. As he wrote, "And then cometh the judgment of the Holy One upon them; and then cometh the time that he that is filthy shall be filthy still; and he that is righteous shall be righteous still; he that is happy shall be happy still; and he that is unhappy shall be unhappy still." (Mormon 9:14)

May we cultivate the habits of happiness now so that happiness eternally will be our lot.

© 2003 by Intellectual Reserve, Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted by permission.
 

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