Follow Your Bliss

The "Talk"

"Dad, how do I know what church is true?" my fourteen-year-old daughter asked me recently, out of the blue.

It was Sunday afternoon and I was reading in my study.  I put my book down.  As a father, I live for moments such as this (Esther 4:14)!

I looked at her and my heart swelled with pride.  No need to cherry-coat things for her, not at her age ― when she was wanting the truth, and wanting it straight.

There she was, blossoming as a jewel of a daughter, full of spiritual yearning, burning hot as the sun (as adolescents do) ― the same age as Joseph Smith when he posed the identical question, "What church is true?"

I could have given her the answer the Lord gave Joseph, "they were all wrong" (JS-H 1:19), but I chose a different angle.  After all, the world is not the same as it was in 1820; we're not in our great-great-great-great grandmother's Second Great Awakening anymore. 

​"Honey," I said.  "Just follow your bliss; it will lead you to God."

She looked at me quizzically.  "Huh?"

"Sweetie, truth fills all of creation; it is not the possession of churches, let alone a single church, for truth outshines them all.  Our best teacher is love, for 'God is love.'  Let the love God has planted in your heart guide you."

I think she found my response less-than-satisfactory, and wanted something more black-and-white (kids are so literal!).  And there I was, thinking I showed such restraint, not even quoting, "The way that can be named is not the Way."

"Do you think the Church is true?" she asked.

She was really putting me on the spot.  "Yes and no," I said.  "I love the Church and am grateful for it.  There are beautiful things about the Church, but it also has a lot of problems.  Like any religion, really, we have to sort the good from the bad.  That's what our agency is for."

She nodded, seeing it was not so simple.  I had no worries, knowing the Lord would shepherd her personal discernment in the coming years.  Each generation must seek His wisdom for the challenges of their day.

I smiled and leaned closer.  "I'll tell you my secret," I said in a conspiratorial whisper.  "My guiding star.  If there's anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report, (Phil. 4:8), I treasure it.  Like you."  I gave her a big hug.  "That's how we stay sane in this crazy world."

The Story of the Stone Cutters

In 1666, the Great Fire of London burned for four days, reducing the world's third largest city to ash.

The fire began in a bakery on the aptly-named Pudding Lane (talk about 'hotcakes').  As people fled the flames, they retreated behind the thick stone walls of St. Paul's Cathedral, which was built on Ludgate Hill ― the highest point of the city.

The frightened townspeople believed God would protect them within the walls of their magnificent Church, and they stockpiled their belongings and books in its crypts.

But fire, like the curiosity of children, has a mind to grow and roam free.  It wasn't long before the flames reached the Cathedral, enveloping the building, making a complete ruin.  (Don't worry, the cathedral had burned before in 1087, so they knew the drill ― and it would later receive bombardment during WWII's Blitz).

Our lives are cathedrals undergoing constant demolition and rebuilding, as we are the temple of God.  We work so hard to stack the stones of our righteousness, our identity, only to see God knock them over.  "There shall not be left here one stone upon the other, that shall not be thrown down" (Matt. 24:2).

We're so busy building ourselves that we often get in God's way, who has a quite different idea about the sort of thing we're becoming.

Architect Sir Christopher Wren was commissioned to oversee the reconstruction of St. Paul's Cathedral in 1666.  One day, about five years into the project, he observed several hardworking stonecutters and stopped to speak to them.

"Excuse me," Sir Wren said to the men, "Can you tell me what you are doing?"

The first stonecutter wiped his forehead.  "As you can see, Sir, I am carrying stones."

Sir Wren turned to the second worker.  "And you?  What are you doing?"

The second stonecutter bowed.  "I am working to feed my family."

Sir Christopher Wren nodded, and faced the third man.  "And you, my good man?"

The last stonecutter's eyes shone brightly.  He replied, "Sir, I am building God a cathedral."  

"Follow Your Bliss"

The stonecutters all performed the same task, but they each had a different purpose.  It was their purpose that defined their labor, not vice versa.

What is our purpose?  Let's not overthink this; the answer is so simple, I think.  Our purpose is to express the gifts of God.

For the way we experience God is through expressing His nature.  And how do we do that?  Through exercising the gifts of the Spirit.

When we share our spiritual gifts, we feel Him in us, working through us ― and in those moments we sense we are one: our hands are His hands, our hearts in sync.

On Sundays we pray to "always have His Spirit" to be with us (Moroni 4:3), but we often forget the way we have His Spirit is through sharing it.

How do we share His Spirit?  Through offering our gifts "according to the gifts and callings of God unto him" (D&C 20:60).  I think the finest way to love others is by freely sharing our gifts with them and the world.  "And all these gifts come by the Spirit of Christ" (Moroni 10:17).
​
If we've been feeling down, and are seeking to jumpstart our hearts, then let us connect our jumper cables to our divine gifts (rather than placing them in the back seat instead of the driver seat where they belong).

For it is through sharing our gifts that we experience the fruits of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22).  The fruits are merely a happy side-effect of the gifts being shared.

The reason we're all so starved, walking around like spiritual skeletons, just skin-and-bone, is because we're not "profiting" from each other's gifts (D&C 46:12).

Leadership put the kibosh on White Elephant parties at Church a long time ago.  Now we all have to purchase gifts from an authorized gift registry at Target.

And so we've "quenched the Spirit" (1 Thess. 5:19) in various ways I've tried to expound over the years. 

"But Tim," someone says, "I don't know what my spiritual gifts are.  How do I find my unique, divine purpose?"

That's a good question.  Let me ask: what brings you joy?  What energizes your mind?  What makes you leap out of bed in the morning?  These are signs God has given you.

My favorite cinematic line is from the movie Chariots of Fire, when Eric Liddell (who ran in the 1924 Paris Olympics) told his family (who didn't support his pursuits in athletics, since they were Christian missionaries and thought Eric should do more important work) ― Eric said in defense of his dream:

"I believe God made me for a purpose, but He also made me fast.  And when I run, I feel His pleasure."

​Joseph Campbell said, "If you follow your bliss you put yourself on a kind of track that has been there all the while, waiting for you, and the life that you ought to be living is the one you are living. When you can see that, you begin to meet people who are in your field of bliss, and they open doors to you. I say, follow your bliss and don't be afraid, and doors will open where you didn't know they were going to be."

   So follow your bliss!

Carpe Diem

​If there’s one thing I wish we’d understand, it's that life is a glorious game of hopscotch in which we condescended to ascend.

The universe is nothing but a playground, for the Kingdom of heaven is comprised of little children at recess, full of rubber balls and swing sets and, most terrifyingly, tag.

In this sandbox we never play alone.  We must learn to socialize and get along.  Little Mary has her ponytail pulled; Sam gets knocked down; Billy feels hot-faced at not being picked for the kickball team.

Life is an exploration of thrills and indignities, a cosmological round of Red Rover.  All of this interaction forges friendships stronger than the cords of death.  The most important thing we're doing is making friends for eternity.  

So many of us seem to be loitering around the Four Square, not playing, shuffling our feet, waiting for the school bell to ring so we can return to the classroom (the Spirit World) where we will sit at desks and trace cursive, learning our letters and doing abstract sums.  But listen!  Now is the time for play, here in mortality.  We've spent eternity studying textbooks and reciting theory.  Now it is recess!

Now is a time to run and trip, be bruised and to shed hot tears, and also to slide and swing and laugh and dance to Ring Around the Rosie.  It is a place for our imaginations to soar without limits, to experience the sun on our cheek and work up a sweat (Gen. 3:19) while living it up.

Nothing on the blacktop stays the same.  Today all-the-rage is Duck, Duck, Goose.  Soon we shall tire of it and make Capture the Flag the hot-ticket.  The dynamics (and drama) are real.  Our mettle is tested as we stand up to schoolyard bullies.  

But remember, the movement of play is sideways, spontaneous, through whirling jump-ropes, skipping to songs, "Benjamin Franklin went to France, To teach the ladies how to dance; First the heel, then the toe, Spin around and out you go!"

Shall we despair whenever the jump-rope becomes entangled about our ankles, endlessly, frustratingly?  No, we keep returning, keep practicing, keep reaching for that once-in-a-lifetime jump.  "I like coffee, I like tea; I like the boys and the boys like me; Tell your mother to hold her tongue; She had a fellow when she was young."

Watch: every-so-often, when the wind is right and the rhythm just-so, we fall into a cadence so beautiful we could skip stars to its beat, entering the flow, feeling a freedom that burns beneath our skin, when the whirling ropes guide us beyond anything we've experienced before, towards something greater than we thought ourselves capable.  "I asked my mother for fifty cents, To see the elephant jump the fence; He jumped so high he touched the sky, and never came back till the Fourth of July."

Each time we enter the fray, dancing between the ropes, we are crafting our story, a destiny that weaves itself into our DNA.  Maybe this jump will be the one students in the future will whisper about in the hallways, in hushed tones as if we were urban legends.

And so we flew out of heaven like eagles, we flooded onto the playground at the sound of the bell, joining the game, glad to get outdoors into the open, beneath a blue sky.  We raised our hands high, eager, stepping up to the plate hoping for a homerun.

Because in this moment, for this brief sliver of eternity we've been given on earth, in this life, we can shout with a delight no one taught us, that cannot be schooled ― a joy that rises unbidden, bliss beyond words ― as we twirl for a fleeting heartbeat, slipping into God's arms, cradled in an ecstasy our bodies were fashioned for.

Here, here, here we ride the merry-go-round.  And even when we become motion sick we shout, "Faster!  Faster!"  We whip our legs on the swings and laugh beside our friends, "Higher!  Higher!"  We did not just come to experience the world: we came to embody it. 

Here we become one with the wheel, with creation, with the Creator.  We feel God's untamed energy rushing through our lungs as we carry the flag home to safety to the shouts and embraces of our teammates.

And so the next time we fall on the pavement and bleed, or become cross with our playmates, or cry over the unfairness of things, losing our place in the tetherball line ― remember, it took billions of years to birth this moment, for the universe to conspire to bring about our joy, here, now, like this.

Generations of time it took, across countless lineages of love, for all of creation to be prepared for this: our bliss.

My Purpose

What is my purpose?  Where do I find my bliss?

Well, that's easy.  God called me to perform spiritual CPR upon a world fallen in unbelief, to attempt to breathe faith into hearts that have failed, applying chest compressions to a love grown cold (Matt. 24:12).

More than 20 years ago, on August 3, 2004, when I was still in law school, I cried out one afternoon in my off-campus apartment and pled with the Lord, asking Him for the gift of Charity.  Among spiritual gifts, love was the one I most desperately desired (boy, if I had only known what I was getting into).

According to Paul, love is the greatest of God's gifts.  I don't think love is great because it sits at the top, but because it supports from beneath, and beside, and within: love abides in all of God's gifts.

It is not "our" love anymore than the air we breathe is "our" oxygen.  Love is the oxygen that saturates our blood and allows for spiritual cellular respiration, God breathing life into our limbs and saying, "Arise."

God's affection flows through us, and indwells His creation like blood coursing through our body, circulating and giving life to all things.

"But Tim," someone says, "God doesn't have blood in His body, does He?"

   And he was clothed
   with a vestiture
   dipped in blood

(Rev. 19:13)

Here we are given a glimpse of Jesus' blood-soaked garment.  But I like to think that Christ's garment ― that is, the flesh ― is the bodies we possess, yours and mine.

​We dress Christ in our mortality, just as He drapes us in immortality.

Love, by itself, is nothing.  For love requires a story.  A love story.

I quoted earlier, "God is love" (1 John 4:8) ― but that is incomplete.  For actually, "God is [a] love [story]."  The love story.

   Our love story.

That's what I wish my fourteen-year-old daughter will understand someday, after she has harvested the fruits of love: the story of God is not the story of a church.

   It is the story of children.

Like the Nile
a poem

Too long our love
has channeled
between berms

like water
in an irrigation ditch.
I want to love

like the Nile
overflowing its banks
in summertime

flooding all things.
Then we shall become
life-giving

​   fertile crescents.