Darkness and Lightness: A Nibleyesque Musing

“To Open the Last Dispensation: Moses Chapter 1” was a very different essay from what I’m used to reading. The comparison between Moses and other apocryphal accounts of confrontations with Satan was certainly interesting, but hard to follow because of the two-column format. It’s interesting to see that the Lord has spoken to men in the same pattern since the beginning of time: they receive a manifestation from God, are tempted by Satan, overcome him, and receive a vision of the eternities as a reward for their faithfulness.

I wonder how this model might be compared to Joseph Smith’s experiences with God. Clearly, the First Vision doesn’t quite fit into this pattern—Joseph is attacked by Satan before receiving a witness from God—but I sense there are some similarities. It really disappoints me when people in recounting the first vision avoid mentioning the evil spirit that nearly overpowered Joseph, as in the Church’s recently released video on the First Vision. For it seems to me that an encounter with evil is almost as important to becoming a prophet as a revelation from God because realizing the reality of Satan is important in being able to adequately warn the people of his tactics. As it says in the Book of Mormon, one of Satan’s greatest weapons in these days is to convince men that he is no devil, for there is none. There is a imminent danger in denying the reality of evil in the world.

Hugh Nibley’s humorous skit on BYU, “Shalamar,” was almost as hilarious today as I’m sure it was back then. The comments about the student’s dress—modest in name only—were dead on to attitudes I see sometimes on campus. I find it frankly amazing that people took themselves lightly enough in that day to be able to put up with Nibley’s cutting humor. Now at BYU, it seems as though we have to worry about everything offending someone; we take everything ten times more seriously than it was meant. One thinks of the recent disaster of the Cougarettes' dance to “Come Thou Fount” which sparked a contentious letter campaign in the reader’s forum of the Daily Universe. In fact, the editorials of the DU are a perfect example of what can happen when we take ourselves more seriously than the gospel. People are always becoming offended, accusing the other side of being the devil even on such non-issues as parking or rolling backpacks.

We all could learn from Nibley’s balance between taking the gospel seriously and laughing at gospel culture. I love watching the skit comedy group on campus, Divine Comedy, but several people I’ve taken to the show have been quite offended by their humor. Particularly, there was a skit about an overzealous return missionary going on a date with a girl which really offended my friend. In the skit, the missionary refused to drink Sprite (“don’t you know they’re owed by Coke?!”) and wanted to have a table facing east (“just in case”). My friend was certain that this was completely blasphemous, making fun of the Word of Wisdom and waiting for the Second Coming. I’m not so certain. These things aren’t doctrines, but cultural practices. One of my favorites is the skit making fun of Sacrament meeting talk clichés and improving upon them. When I watch it, it doesn’t make me pay less attention in Sacrament meeting. Rather, it makes me think of all the conventions we have to keep us occupied, that perhaps prevent the inspiration of the Spirit from getting into our lives. Humor is a way of waking us up, saying, “is this really what you believe, or are you just doing it because everyone else is?” It separates the culture of Mormonism from the doctrines, which allows us to keep our focus on what really matters.

Perfect Day

Human emotions are a weird thing. (I know, I know, another famous understatement from Liz.) Sometimes it takes so little to swing our mood from joyous to depressed or vice versa. The wrong inflection in a voice throws us into doubt, but then a grade on an assignment sends us back up. Every little thing causes us to be tossed to and fro. At other times, a mood is inexplicably immovable, resistant to all outside forces--you could fail a test and not even notice it happened.

Yesterday was one of the latter days for me. For some inexplicable reason, I was up on a high that nothing could bring down. And strangely, everything that would have been bad turned out well. I woke up too late to purchase tickets to the BYU bowl game for my dad, but he managed to get some anyway. I hadn't finished my math homework, but then my rhetoric class got cancelled so I suddenly had time. I did poorly on a test, but miraculously the teacher decided to offer a make-up quiz. It was bizarre how everything went my way yesterday.

And then there was my miraculous timing. Since I was trying to figure out the bowl ticket thing in the morning, I was late to OChem, but I arrived just in time for the in-class quiz, which I wouldn't have been able to make up. Then just as I was leaving class, the computer repair place called to tell me my part had come in. (My power cord blew over Thanksgiving break, and I had been waiting for one to come in.) I ran into a couple of people just when I was thinking about them.

When I got home from school, I flipped on the TV to find an episode of Star Trek was just beginning! I had been dying to watch some TNG for quite a while. (It was even a Data episode, which is my favorite kind. They always deal with issues of what it means to be human--very interesting. To top off the goodness, the next episode was a time travel one!) I used the commerical break to go start some laundry, and just as I had finished loading the machines, a whole bunch of other people walked in. Had I been five minutes later, I would have been out of luck for at least an hour. All very small things, but put together, it made me feel like I had entered some strange twilight zone.

This whole experience begs the question: which is the cause and which is the effect? Does the quality of our day control our attitude, or is it our attitude that makes a day seem so wonderful? And if it's the latter, as I suspect it is, what is responsible for an inexplicably good attitude? You can try to convince yourself that today will be good, but it never seems to quite work as long as you're aware you're tricking yourself. A good day has to spring up on you suddenly.

Then again, there's something about good days that can be even worse than having a bad day. If you realize that you're having a good day, then you have to take care not to do anything that might break whatever magic controls these things. About noon yesterday when I realized things were going perfectly, I went into a minor panic. I was almost afraid to do anything that might risk shattering this mood. Perfection is a burden. When I was a kid, I would concentrate hard on making each day perfect, doing things in a ritual way to prevent anything uncertain from damaging the day. After a while, my mom used to tell me that I had to make five mistakes a day, just to keep me from obsessing about messing it up.

Like most good things, perfection only works in small doses. But when you have it, the power is intoxicating.