Please pray for me.

Attempting the Impossible

[From a talk I gave in sacrament meeting October 25th, 2009; based on Elder Zeballos' October 2009 Conference Address: "Attempting the Impossible"]


In this life, each one of us is asked to attempt the impossible: to walk the lonely road to salvation as Christ did and to become perfect as He is. I look at that road, the ‘strait and narrow’ path ahead of me, and I certainly don’t see the tree that Lehi spoke of.


Nephi told us it would be this way though: that the path that leads to the love of God would be enveloped with mists of darkness, even “exceedingly great mists of darkness.” Often the only thing we can see is a rod of cold iron, inflexible and rigid. My heart tells me it leads to a place I am sure I do not want to go: it promises to lead to a tree with exceedingly beautiful fruit, but makes no pretense that I will not be led directly up to the altar on Moriah and deep into my own personal Gethsemane. It leads a lonely journey--often in complete darkness and silence. There are no angels to beckon nor a light to guide. And its not just other’s scoffing that tempts me to let go, but my own heart that tells me to take a different path.



As if the journey wouldn’t be difficult enough though, He asks even more outrageous things of us along the way: love those that despise you, turn the other cheek, be reconciled to thy brother, bear one another’s burdens that they may be light, give more than we can spare.


God truly intends for us to be tremendously different than we currently are. He asks so much of us (more than we can possibly give) because, as David O. McKay taught, the richest rewards come only to the strenuous strugglers: to each of us who are us asked to do so much that we have no option but to fail, and fail, and fail until we finally succeed.


We are not alone in that failure. 

Its abundant in the scriptures. We often think of the scriptures as a roadmap to success--the history of heroes--but to us what seems so triumphant may have felt to them very different. Lehi sailed across an ocean, but in the end was able to save less than half his family. Abinadi had the courage to testify boldly in the court of a wicked king, but died without a single convert. Moses led the children of Israel out of slavery and across the Red Sea, but was not able to step foot in the promised land. Nor was Abraham. Israel, the chosen of the Lord, spent much of history conquered by their enemies. Isaiah, Micah and Nahum were able to speak the word of the Lord, but did so to a declining nation that rejected their words. Alma and Amulek converted many, only to see them burned for their faith. The Church Christ Himself set up crumbled within a century. Joseph Smith brought forth what was to become “the most correct of any book on earth” but only after losing 116 pages through disobedience. The pioneers who crossed the plains did so only after numerous failed attempts establishing their Zion.


Of course they didn’t fail though--and maybe we, too, are more successful than we think. Maybe the small steps we take toward Him, the small sacrifices we offer Him, the meager service we give His children are not as failed as we imagine but, like the widow’s mite accepted, not because they are enough, but because they are all we have to offer. Maybe our failures--like theirs of old--are actually triumphs in the eyes of the Lord. In Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis writes: “this Helper who will, in the long run, be satisfied with nothing less than absolute perfection, will also be delighted with the first feeble, stumbling effort you make tomorrow to do the simplest duty.”


Elder Zeballos reassures us that ‘God will not require more than the best we can give.” But in the same breath tells us that “He can not accept less than that because that would not be just.” Make no mistake: God will break our hearts, He will bend our knees, He will ask us to give more than we are prepared to, more than we want to and more than we should have to.


And why not? The Savior attempted the impossible in saving us: He gave His all when there was no assurance that it would be enough. Even a perfect atonement cannot save a single soul if they are too proud to accept it. He sacrificed everything and offers everything to us. To us who so easily “esteem it as naught”. I imagine, that just like us, He didn’t quite realize just how much Heavenly Father’s will demanded of Him. It was probably a lot harder than He expected. When He needed God the most, His Father turned away. C.S. Lewis writes that on the cross, Christ “found that the Being He called Father was horribly and infinitely different from what He had supposed.” His Atonement required a lifetime of obedience and an ultimate, final and complete sacrifice. Should we not too, at times, be called to suffer--alone and unbearably--with the doors of Heaven slammed before us?


Saving us individually is just as impossible a task. Each of us (or at least me!) is so quick to do evil, and slow to do good. The natural man within us is so rebellious, so ungrateful and so forgetful. We avoid suffering and pain at every cost and often His merciful hands that reach out to us, reach out in vain. And yet He is there--He has a plan B, and a plan C and plan D to save us.


Elder Zeballos teaches us, as Jesus Christ did through His perfect example and commandment to follow--to serve “with all our heart, with all our might, with all our mind, and with all our strength--that is to say, with all our being… That we will do the best we can in our roles as… children, brothers and sisters; in our callings; in sharing the gospel; in rescuing those who have drifted; in working for the salvation of our ancestors; in our work; and in our daily lives.”


I’m grateful--or rather, sometimes grateful-- for the impossible things that God has asked me to attempt. Even though I fail (even though I can’t even imagine what success would look like) in trying, I find myself becoming a lot more like Him than I would otherwise.


I bear my testimony of the Savior and of His commandments. Of a loving God who asks so much of us because there is a great need to become like Him. Many broken people need someone who can love as the Savior did, lift as He did, give as He gave. And the only way to become like that is to become as He is. “The Son of God suffered unto death, not that men might not suffer, but that their sufferings might be like His.” (George MacDonald, Unspoken Sermons, First Series) That our impossible tasks might make us like Him.


I’m grateful for what I have learned in this ward. My first day in Seattle, eight years ago, I got stung on the head by a bee, got lost on the Burke-Gillman and went to sleep hungry because I couldn’t find a place to eat dinner, but here I stand seven years later feeling like I am leaving Zion. In this building, I received both the new member discussions, my first calling and the Melchizedek priesthood. In Lander Hall just down the way, I got my first priesthood blessing. I have made countless friends here, who have at many times and in many different ways have shown me the love of God and acted, to me, as ‘Saviors on Mount Zion.’ In the last few years I have learned so much of who God is and what He expects of me.


I think the most important thing I have learned, and I’ve learned it in a very personal way is this:

... It is a poor thing to strike our colours to God when the ship is going down under us; a poor thing to come to Him as a last resort, to offer up 'our own' when it is no longer worth keeping. If God were proud He would hardly have us on such terms: but He is not proud, He stoops to conquer, He will have us even though we have shown that we prefer everything else to Him, and come to Him because there is 'nothing better' now to be had.

I know that God loves me, because even when I do not love or desire Him, He does not abandon me. I’m grateful He has always surrounded me by people who love me, and grateful for the love I received while in this ward. I trust that as each of us attempt the impossible, He will help us. May we honor Him and each other by doing the best that we possibly can.

Nothing in Return

“A gift is pure when it is given from the heart to the right person at the right time and at the right place, and when we expect nothing in return.” - Bhagavad Gita

Living a life daily at Moriah's altar is a heart-wrenching experience. Ironically, for such a sacred venue it doesn't feel sanctified at all. I stand without hope, at a lonely, painful and exposed place that couldn't feel further away from God. He gives me the choice, to know that at any moment I can walk down from the mount: forget the pain, leave behind the loneliness and find someone who loves me and gives me reason to smile every day for the rest of my life. He's taken away the hope of both finding some ram in the thicket and also, more painfully, of seeing some sign that all this sacrifice is accepted by Him. And the longer I stay the more damage I do--the less I become a happy person, the more pain I inflict upon my psyche, the less I am able to look beyond myself to see the needs of others, loving less the God who asks me to stand there like a fool.

A couple weeks ago I visited the Sacred Grove. I can say honestly that I know much of how Joseph must have felt as he walked onto that hallowed ground--unsure of which path to take, confused by different voices calling in every direction. And to a small extent, to have hope and faith that like Joseph, God would answer the prayer of a young man so confused, and so earnest, and so humbled. Despite my righteous desire to know God's will, despite my faith that He would answer, despite the fact that He should have answered, I left feeling empty, unsure of everything.

Instead of some great victory or triumph, I am forced to live a life of daily failure. Of constantly believing that no matter how much I am asked to give--how much I try to give--it is not enough, nor will it ever be. One step forward, and two steps back. Even with my best efforts I'm still further away then I have ever been.

I fully expect that at some point in my life my Church membership will be taken from me. Despite sacrificing more than I think I ever could as I walk in the darkness toward Him, I know that eventually I'll make a mistake (how could I not when at every moment of my life I desire to?) and an unsympathetic bishop will convene a council of unsympathetic men that will tell me--in the name of God--that my all wasn't nearly good enough.

God says He wants my heart, but when I try to offer it to Him, He won't take it. I plead with Him almost daily to just rip it out, take it from me. It doesn't work right. Instead of one final blow though, He insists on pulling, pressing and pounding it so I can feel poignantly the bruised organ beating in my body. He leaves me a broken heart, seemingly to remind me of the hurt caused by mistaken promises, to let me have a taste of what it might be like to feel love, and then to ache for it, knowing it will never be fulfilled.

And the 'eternal reward'? There is no reward for constant failure. Scripture makes it clear that God will not except a blemished sacrifice--but I have nothing else to offer. And so I stand at the altar, placing on it everything I want and think I need. Binding there my desires for love and romance and family. Giving Him my happiness and my hope.

There is no "ram caught in a thicket" (Genesis 22:13) here, nor is there the God who asks all this of me.

So Much Things To Say

I've neglected my blog as of late, not because I've run out of things to say--but more out of the abundance of things that have been on my mind:

• I have no one else to tell this to, so I'm relegated to writing it on a blog: I fell in love with a boy. I said it to him, he said it to me. It felt perfect, and it got even better. And at the moment I was thanking God for him, the day I realized he was quite possibly one of the best things to ever happen to me, when things between us were starting to become better than I could have imagined he slammed on the brakes. With no warning, I went from going full-speed-ahead to flying through the front windshield because I had just begun to believe I didn't need to worry about a seat belt. The most painful words I think a person can ever hear (and I've heard the phrase twice now, from both the boys I've loved) are: "I'm sorry if you misunderstood my actions..." I can handle not having a future with you, but do you have to go and ruin the past, too?
• I finished Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis. One of the profound things he wrote: "... it may seem to you for a long time that no help, or less help than you need is being given. Never mind. After each failure, ask forgiveness, pick yourself up, and try again. Very often what God first helps us towards is not the virtue itself but just the power of always trying again." Such a beautiful thought, are failings aren't failure, we only fail when we stop trying.
• I got a job offer today for a better job. There isn't a single person on earth that I wanted to tell, feel free to leave a note of congratulations in the comment section, it'd be nice to celebrate with someone.
• Sometimes showing up to sacrament meeting with a smile on my face is the absolute best that I can do.
• Never have heaven's doors felt so closed and so empty as in the past couple months as I've tried to 'come back' and draw closer to God.
• When I talk about what I did over the weekend and I tell people I went to a movie (or whatever else) by myself they get uncomfortable. I think they feel sad for me. Up until the last year, loneliness was a completely foreign concept to me. I am sure it would break my parents' hearts if they had any idea how lonely I feel now.
• I'm on week four of my exercise routine--a six pack is starting to appear. A couple weeks ago, I buzzed my hair and for the first time in a couple weeks, I feel like its starting to look really good.
• When I was sixteen, I promised God that for the rest of my life I would pay a complete and honest tithing. I haven't wanted to pay it since Prop 8. Two weeks ago I gave the Bishop my tithing for the last nine months -- not because I want the blessings of paying tithing, but because I needed to show God I am trying to keep my promises to Him.

Ticket for one, please.

"The loneliness of the heart that wants love is unbearable." - Mother Teresa

I'm starting to come to terms with the idea that I will likely spend the greater portion of the remainder of my life alone.

Now for a member of a Church who's doctrine teaches that celibacy is the only viable option for someone 'dealing with same-gender attraction' maybe I should've come to this conclusion a lot sooner. I'm sure you'll excuse me though for wanting to delay the thought of spending the holidays, my birthday and every sunset and sunrise alone.

Loneliness isn't something one usually welcomes into one's life. Yet, in my inevitable journey into the future, its something that I can't delay any longer.

And so I've begun the process: a solitary walk on the beach at sunset ... a night at the theater ("Ticket for one, please.") ... going by myself to a romantic comedy... planning trips where I constantly change the default from 2 adults to 1 ... keeping the moments of greatest excitement and deepest pain to myself, not sharing with anyone what I most want to ...

At times, the thought of a solitary life can be overwhelming and the longing for love, unbearable. It is both humbling and embarrassing to sit in a theater by yourself, watching everyone else snuggle up next to someone they love. It is surprisingly painful to snap pictures of a couple on the beach and then try to hold your own camera far enough away to capture your own face and the setting sun in the same shot. It is difficult beyond words to suppress the hope of 'one day.' (The hope that 'one day, I'll find love' that 'one day, I'll wake up with his arms around me' that 'one day, I'll be with someone who makes me smile'.) To give up the dream of a wedding day; of a soft, perfect kiss; of companionship; of love.

And yet, it seems now more than ever, He is asking me to do this: “Love is proved by deeds; the more they cost us, the greater the proof of our love."