The Problem of Perfection: Part III

So I figured out why I had a sudden influx of random people a few weeks ago: I was highlighted on The Archipelago Digest, an LDS blog review/digest cool-thing. Well, belated hello to you all (assuming some of you are still reading). I'm not sure I like the pressure of being classified as part of the Bloggernacle, although I guess I self-sorted anyway. I feel like I should be blogging about more church topics, when lately my blogging has been skewed towards writerly topics. I guess I don't like being confined to one subject area. Well, take me or leave me, I guess. :D

As a result of finding the Archipelago link, I've renewed my attempt at being more involved in the Bloggernacle. And when I say "involved" I mean "added a bunch of random feeds to my Google reader to see if I like them." (I'll post some sort of review in a few weeks.) One post on Zelophehad's Daughters caught my eye: Why I Hate Mormons. If that provocative title doesn't get you to read it, it's basically a discussion of dealing with the imperfection of Church members, and particularly Church leaders. Since I've been meaning to deal with this topic anyway (as part of my Problem of Perfection mini-series-whatever), I thought I'd post my discussion here. Mostly, I'm just wanting to organize my thoughts before treading into the comments section, where there is no edit button.

First off, although it's bad form, I'd like to start with a disclaimer. This is a big spherical chicken. Like, KFC family meal size. There are tons of situations where what I'm saying would need severe modification, especially in instances of abuse. But, as is usually the policy on this blog, try to ignore the exceptions and focus on the general philosophy instead. Good? Good. Moving on.

Okay, so I don't know anything about the author of the post--as I said I'm new to following this blog--but to me, the story sounds little lopsided and out of proportion. I try to be objective when I write, but I know that I color my actions a little, especially when I write rants against other people. It's natural to want to make ourselves out to be innocent--it makes for a better case. When I read this woman's story, I get the feeling that there's a definite amount of bias, probably because of the lack of admission of possible fault in the author. But, as I said, I don't know the details, so I can't really talk about the specific matter.

What I can talk about it this: I find it interesting that we (members of the church generally, and so-called liberal Mormons specifically) seem to think it's okay for us to condemn others for condemning us. The normal kinds of mistakes, we expect others to tolerate and be patient with, but the sin of intolerance is an automatic out. It's as if somehow intolerance is less important for us to forgive than more conventional faults like lying, cheating, and stealing. Which is clearly ridiculous. The atonement, and its corollary that we are required to forgive all men, covers both active sins and faults of character, like closed-mindedness and discrimination.

Just because you get called to be a bishop or Relief Society president doesn't make you perfectly capable. Theoretically, the further up the "chain of command" you go, the more nearly perfect the people are. But I would be cautious about saying even that much. Take Hugh Nibley's grandfather, Charles Nibley, who was the Presiding Bishop. Arguably, that's high up enough to hold him to a pretty high standard. Yet, on his death bed, he told Hugh if an angel came through the door, he would jump out the window because of the things he had done in order to be successful in business. Clearly, the Lord's standard for calling people is not ours. Of course it's not. It seems to me that this idea of a "minimum standard" of perfection for Church callings is largely illusory, or at least considerably lower than most of us set it.

And this difference in standards causes problems for us, because people in Church callings, even those of high authority, are far from perfect. This often causes pain. I'm not saying that it shouldn't. Imperfection hurts, especially when it comes from people we expect to be able to love or trust. The only place it hurts worse than in Church leadership is in our own families, as CS Lewis discusses in The Four Loves: because our families and our leaders theoretically love us and have stewardship over us, we grow to expect a sort of mind reading, unfair though it may be, and when we don't get it, we get hurt.

However, as I see it, there are two ways of looking at the imperfection of people in the Church, and for that matter in the world in general. Either you can say, as Lady Amalthea seems to have, "These people are wrong, ignorant, and stupid. They're hopeless, and if they are the best the church has to offer, it's unfortunate that I have to be a part of it. How can God allow these people to do these things as his representatives? Wouldn't it be much better to have the Gospel without the Church?" For me, this way seems extremely unhealthy, because it implies that idea of a "tolerable level" of perfection, when in fact, from God's perspective, even the best of us make very little progress in this life.

Here's my counter-statement to the above attitude. I can't claim to always apply it, but I try to remind myself of it whenever I am offended by someone's imperfection. "These people have probably never dealt with someone like me/a situation like this before, so I can see how it might be hard for them. Even though these people hold offices in the church, that doesn't mean they are perfect. God does believe in agency, after all: theirs and mine. He will call them, but He will also allow them to make the choices. I need to help them understand and communicate with me so that they can better deal with these situations, and I can better learn why they act this way. From this problem, we can all progress as children of God. "

In other words, we should look at the imperfection of the saints as a tool rather than a problem. Our intolerance of other's intolerance merely throws into relief our own intolerance. We need to bump up against these problems in order to grow in godly patience and love ourselves. The imperfection of the people in the Church is not an obstacle to the gospel. It is the gospel.

(For related thoughts, see Paradox of Tolerance, or posts tagged "tolerance.")

Essence of Romance

One of the reasons I've always felt under-qualified to write fiction is my lack of experience in the most essential points of life. My life has been primarily academic: I eat, sleep, and breathe knowledge, school, and the like. There's not a whole lot of plot you can draw from that. As interesting as a novel full of intellectuals would be (I did think about writing one once), what a book really needs is life, life in all its myriad forms. There must be variation in experience and character.

All right, let me stop dancing around the issue: I never felt comfortable writing about love. There, I said it. I've never been the sort of person who was big about finding someone to crush on or flirt with. That's just never been part of my style. Other than a few dark periods, one of which revived this blog, I was okay with being that way. Romance wasn't something I felt a strong need for.

Frankly, I just didn't understand it at all. Love didn't seem all that desirable. I figured sometime it would just happen and then I would understand it, but I was in no rush to get to such a position. For some reason I had this idea in my head that having some sort of romantic experience would suddenly illuminate my understanding. The principle of experience seems to hold for everything else--it's difficult to understand everyday activities like sports or cooking unless you have practical experience. The same with academics--experience reading literary criticism yields better ability to understand further literary criticism.

How wrong I was.

Looking from this end of things, love still isn't very desireable, and that worries me a bit. I'd say romantic love is another one of those spherical chickens I so adore: quite easy and obvious to deal with if you gloss over the reality of it, but in any particular application, impossible to predict or explain. The best side to understand love from is the outside. Once you embroil yourself in it, extrication and even feigned objectivity are impossible. It's so ridiculously painful and impossible: any logical person would throw it away, like Plato says in the Phaedrus. And yet, we keep sticking around for it, writing songs about it, making millions off the royalties.

And I must disagree with Oscar Wilde: the very essence of romance is certainty, certainty that something can go on forever, despite all evidence that it doesn't. Or maybe Oscar Wilde was right, and the uncertainty inherent in romance is why I reject it. What I want is not any sort of thrill; I want the sort of romance you only see in couples who have been married for 40 years. A quiet knowledge, a day-to-day dependability, a soft completeness. Can't I just skip over the first bit?

Update: Ooh! Multimedia extension of my thoughts: the three most recent Megatokyo comics.

After Poem Wind-Down, in Prose

Funny how sometimes when you think you know just the right person to cheer you up or help you out, the universe sends the exactly wrong person. But today, he ended up being the right person because he made me realize all that I am not. I am not hopeless, clueless, or alone. That I do have skills, that I could be likeable, that there is hope for joy.

And I know the answer to my poem is in What the Thunder Said. But how does one get there from the Wasteland? (Sorry for the literary reference, but if you haven't read it, you should. And then you should talk about it with someone who has, or it won't mean anything.) My life is so centered on being lost, different, and alone that it's difficult to see the pathway to being part of something. I seem to have an idea of the bridge, in which I'm sure Christ is involved, but the path is still hazy to me.

Perhaps this all comes about from reading the Screwtape Letters. Or it's another factor anyway. I know, I should hardly dare to put CS Lewis on my interests list if I haven't read it before, but there's a first time for anything. But that part about keeping our beliefs in the theoretical, thinking it is enough to simply think about action, and allowing that to lead us to complacency, that hit to my core. That's me--living in the world of my ideals.

A sign on a professor's door in the Benson building reads:

Theoretically, there's no difference between theory and practice.
Practically, there is.

And that sums up my problem: I know a lot about people and relationships theoretically, but practically is another matter. I am not good at risking myself, trying, caring, being there. And I feel I should be, despite the fact that I have never done so. As a child, I never played games until I was sure I could win (which probably explains my aversion to sports). That continues to today. I have never actually played Risk, but I have watched it so many times. Video games, same deal: I've seen them all, played none. Never played DDR, but I like the idea of it. Ultimate Frisbee, definitely not at all. And relationships, where it's not a game, are much worse. How can I possibly learn how to win before I start?

In order for me to ever find what I seek, I must be willing to "take chances, make mistakes, and get messy." But I am not. I need to find a way to be able to. I could try locking myself off, but clearly that's not something I would do. I try to keep my self at the surface, but as a result I have to be very cautious or I can break. Do break, actually, but we try to keep the damage down.