Another Way to Fight Anger?

In this day and age, we are surrounded by anger. I see it everywhere, especially when people talk politics or about the pandemic. Anger has its uses, but excess anger is never a good thing, always leading to unintended disastrous results.

I have, myself, struggled with anger issues my entire life. People who meet me in person usually see me as this loving caring dude nice to everyone. This image is so hard for anyone to shake that it seems I can do no bad, and I'm forgiven very quickly.

But people who only see me through the internet alone have a total different perspective of me. They don't see the happy-go-lucky guy I am, and judge me solely on my words, and usually see me as some kind of cranky old guy. It's the funniest thing.

No one is immune to anger. It's actually okay to get angry. It's kind of like pain sending a message to your brain that something is wrong with your body. Anger is a way to tell your brain that something needs to be done. What you do with that anger next then becomes of utmost importance.

Often when I get angry with someone, I don't know how to deal. Sometimes I let it build up inside until I blow up -- surprising the person. I almost get the response, "Dude -- I totally thought you were kidding." And sometimes on the internet I let my anger project in comments I write in unfair ways. Is there some other way?

What I'm about to share comes from the Book of Mormon (our church's assigned Sunday School reading for the year), but this message is universal, and I think all readers can benefit.

To set up the verse, this all happens near the end of Alma where Captain Moroni's people are fighting with the enemy and are basically losing the war. Captain Moroni gets angry. He wants the government to send more troops. He thinks they're just sitting in their nice little central city eating meat and fruits, ignoring their blight. So, Moroni writes a very angry letter to Pahoran the governor. It goes on for three full pages (Alma 60), and it gets juicy. Here are some paraphrased excerpts:

I fear God will judge you because of your slothfulness of our government and neglect. People are dying out here. Do you think God will deliver us while you sit on your throne? If you don't send us food and men, I'm going to personally come down with my armies and kill you and correct the government. You are transgressing God's laws and trampling them under your feet ... and so on and on.

At the same time, unknown to Moroni, the governor, Pahoran, is having his own problems. An insurrection has taken the city and exiled him. So, there's no way he can send men and provisions to fight.

Now, imagine you're Pahoran, the governor, receiving this letter. How would you react?

Or better yet ... let's bring this to today. You're on Facebook, and someone's responded to your comment, and they say very nasty things about you ... things that you know aren't true. What's the first thing you're going to do?

If you're anything like me, you're not going to let them get away with that! You must protect your own dignity and reputation -- it is of utmost importance. I don't know how many times I've answered allegations against me point by point. It only seems the natural thing to do. "People have to understand that you can't just throw your own projections and uninformed assumptions on other people. Or in other words ... how dare you judge someone without really knowing that person? Grrr. Grrr."

And almost every time, my attempt fails. The attackee then feels attacked and comes back stronger than before, and then it gets ugly. And both parties are all like: "what's wrong with that dude?" and then nothing gets accomplished.

Surely there's another way?

Well -- this is how Pahoran reacted:

"And now, in your epistle you have censured me, but it mattereth not; I am not angry, but do rejoice in the greatness of your heart." Alma 61: 9 

He then goes on to invite Captain Moroni to come and march against the insurrection. And how did Moroni react? With happiness, and he was more than willing to drop everything immediately and march toward Pahoran, gathering troops along the way. Then within a couple of years, they not only defeated the insurrection, but also worked together to finally defeat the main enemy and bring peace back to the land.

Had Pahoran responded differently ("How dare you accuse me of these false allegations!") the result would have been disastrously different. Pahoran had chosen the better path.

I don't know why, but that simple phrase: "I am not angry" hit me hard. It helped me realize that I've been doing it wrong, and I have to change. I've already tried to make changes in my responses on social media.

And you know Pahoran had to be angry when he got that letter. There's no way he couldn't have had that first gut-feeling reaction. But he quickly gathered his faculties and answered each of Moroni's every concern -- choosing to ignore the allegations against himself (like ad hominems lodged against us on social media), and found a way to get Moroni on his side.

I think our spirituality relies on this idea: instead of reacting, try to understand the concerns of the other person ... speak to those concerns, and get them on your side, and then you'll be in a better position to speak your concerns and have more success in understanding each other.

At least I'm going to give it a try. During this day and age, we could all benefit from such a tactic.

What is Scrupulosity?

I'm a perfectionist, which can both be a blessing and a curse. Scrupulosity is a type of perfectionism that can hinder one's spiritualism. And this topic can span several different posts -- I may come back to this several times.

Today will be just an introduction. Scrupulosity comes down to this:

Jesus says "Be ye therefore perfect," but I'm not perfect.

Such a contradiction! And I believe that ultimately, it's the number one reason behind why many people leave religion. It's a paradox that religions are supposed to help us become better people, but in pursuing these goals, we realize how imperfect we are and see how impossible it is.

It reminds me of a recurring dream I used to have where I've died and gone to heaven. In this heaven, we are allowed to do anything we want, but if we break any of the rules ... even one of them, then we get kicked out. And there are so many rules. As a result, I find it impossible to enjoy this heaven, as I'm not entirely sure what all the rules are, and I know I'm not going to last long -- and every day I see friends falling. So, it becomes like its own hell.

When I was young I was taught the Plan of Salvation, where there are three main outcomes in heaven: the Telestial (bottom), the Terrestrial (middle), and the Celestial (highest) Kingdoms. And for years, I told myself, "I'm not perfect, so I'll shoot for the Terrestrial Kingdom." I said as much in my Sunday School class as a teenager, and my teacher, Bro. Daughtery, stopped the lesson right there and asked me why I wasn't shooting for the Celestial Kingdom.

I answered, "Because it's impossible. Only perfect people go there. I already know I'm not going to make it."

And he basically changed my life. I can't remember exactly what his arguments were, but he helped me to realize that it's never too late for any of us. We can try and shoot for the top. We can strive for perfection even though we can't achieve it in this life. And most importantly ... a lot of people who are imperfect now are going to make it to the top.

My church gets a lot of flack for apparently having too many rules, checklists, and duties. Many members feel stress from trying to keep up and having to do everything, and some leave, feeling that it's much better not to have the stress at all.

I also hate rules and checklists ... especially the checklists ... but I've come to realize that most of this is self-imposed. And when our leaders give us these rules and checklists -- listen carefully -- they're not saying that they are minimum requirements for entering heaven, but rather they are tips and guidelines to help us in our journey to achieve perfection.

And that's what scrupulosity is. It is when we, ourselves, through our own perfectionism, submit ourselves to unattainable goals, and when we fail we suffer undue stress. At the time it feels like it's the Church doing it to us, but for myself, after further analysis, I realize that it is I doing to myself.

I wish I could speak more, but I must force myself to keep the time short. We'll come back to this later. In the meantime, feel free to share your own thoughts about perfectionism, rules, scrupulosity, and so on. How do you cope?

Churching From Home

I really do miss seeing all my friends at church. Even today we're still not meeting -- we're evidently waiting for the counts and active cases to subside. And it's clear from our local leaders that safety is the number one goal -- they do not want a church service to be a conduit for the spread of the virus.

This has been both a blessing and a curse over these last few months. We're now in our 6th month and counting. Let's go over the curses first so I can save the best for last.

Curses
I usually get bored at church, mainly because I hear the same thing over and over again -- stuff I already know. During Sunday School or Priesthood Quorum, I'll be doing puzzles on my phone to keep my brain active while I'm listening ... that seems to help out a lot.

Every now and then I do get a good nugget when someone teaches me something new, or relates a story that helps me see an old concept in a new light. So, perhaps these nuggets make it all worth it.

But during the absence of my church colleagues, I've come to learn that church is more than just learning stuff. It's also about building a community, so we can reinforce each other and become friends -- a way in which we can help each other's lives to be much better and more bearable. And now with this big long rest, I can see what I'm missing, and I can't wait till we see each other again. Right now it just feels like there's something missing in my life.

Blessings
But then again, being able to hold church from home has brought some unique opportunities. This is what our local church leaders have recommended over the past 6 months: we can conduct church in our homes, similarly to how we have church in our buildings ... sing hymns, pray together, have talks and discussions, and so on. We're even authorized to conduct the sacrament (Eucharist, Last Supper) as long as a person has the priesthood authority to do so.

In one way, this helps us to customize church to better fit our family. In my case, it also seems to bring my family closer together. And as I've heard several of my priesthood friends say ... it's been years since we've "blessed the sacrament" and now we have the unique opportunity to do it every week.

It also gives us much more opportunity to speak and teach to each other. And sing with a much smaller crowd.

What's most interesting is that last year our church launched a new initiative called "Come Follow Me." It was billed as a new way to prepare for upcoming days, and lo and behold, it has become an integral part of our home churching these past 6 months.

How it works: our church assigns a reading for the week, and provides spiritual guidance in conjunction with that reading, and we are to meet with our families during the week to discuss, read together, or however we feel best to use it.

Last year we read through the entire New Testament. And this year we're attacking the Book of Mormon. Right now, the entire world is reading about the wars at the end of Alma, with the Sons of Helaman staying true to their cause and honoring their parents.

It helps to bring unity among the church, but during this crisis, it also helps us to know what to concentrate our Sunday church lessons on.

I'm curious to hear about your church experiences from home ... did you do anything? Are you back going to real church by now? Have any of you had bad experience from churching at home?

Hope you're all doing well!

Am I Spiritual Enough?

I'm going to try something new.

Today we had ourselves a Zoom meeting, and the topic was on how to stay spiritually and physically healthy. The physical aspect makes sense during these pandemic times -- with the gyms closed and staying at home all day, it's easy to neglect exercising and health. I, myself, have noticed I haven't been getting any upper body workout of any kind. And I've just now started taking vitamins to boost immunity in case I catch this disease.

The spiritual aspect is just as important, and lately I've felt a little lacking. And someone suggested -- if you have issues, instead of hitting them head on, perhaps the best approach is to build up your spirituality, (and merging in what others said), and then you can build momentum to quickly attack any and all issues effectively ... kind of like building a spiritual immunity.

So, I'm going to add quick little weekly snippets on this blog where I pick some random spiritual topic and blah blah blah for about 30 minutes (which for me can be on the moderately long side). As always, I encourage further discussions and reactions in the comments -- either here, on Twitter, or on Facebook.

So am I spiritual enough? I come across as a funny guy. I'm always telling jokes, and I can take almost any situation and come up with a bad dad pun in five seconds flat. And yeah, sometimes they can get dirty. People who know me know I have a hard time turning that off. I guess it's how my brain works, and I like to make people laugh. Happiness, I find, is a cure for almost all ills. And it definitely increases my popularity.

But am I spiritual? I'm not sure exactly how to answer that. I look at some people who are really good at doing all the checkbox items: reading scriptures, going to church, doing their ministering assignments, regular family readings and meetings, doing genealogy, visiting the sick in the hospitals, and so on, so on.

And then I look at myself. It's hard to keep up with all that stuff and still have time for other things. I'm more inconsistent with the checkbox items. But I still feel like I have a decent relationship with God. It always feels like I have a prayer in my heart mostly all the time, and I'm always bouncing ideas at God ... I never give him a break. These are less like prayers, but more like a conversation with a mentor. I know he's listening, and sometimes I hear him answer back. He'll say, "Now that's a great idea." And then many times I never get around to executing that plan.

At least I'm communicating.

The world we live in is busy. There are so many things to do. I'm trying to keep up with my day job and my music publishing business. My subconscious is running all the time, doing code almost every waking hour, composing music, planning, finding patterns in everything, cooking up stories. It never shuts off ... and how can I compete with that and be more spiritual?

I don't think checking off the boxes gets one into heaven, but doing those items certainly helps one to focus and learn how to be spiritual. But what exactly does that mean ... to be spiritual?

I think it's connecting to all things spiritual, whether it's talking to God, thinking about Jesus, or becoming receptive to the influence of the Holy Spirit. People of other religions can also be spiritual and connect with higher beings, or gain a higher understanding of one's existence through deep meditation.

But none of it does any good unless it's turned into action. Once we have a higher understanding, it should always translate into something actionable -- in other words, we can understand what we can do better to make someone's life more bearable.

We can bear testimony to our friends and explain spiritual matters. We can be guided to seek out people who need help, and provide assistance. We may even learn what tasks or projects we can accomplish that is lovely and of good report so that we can bring happiness to many people.

If we're always striving to do better, improving our own lives, or the lives of our friends and neighbors, then yes ... I think we are being spiritual enough.

What do you think?

This ends my 30 minutes of random blah blah, but I hope it is received well. I'll keep this up every Sunday, and see how it goes. My own personal plan to increase my own spiritual immunity and hopefully make other people's life better in some small way.