Has anyone else noticed how life is
lived in the past? Every sound we hear or light our eyes detect brings
information from the past. There is not such thing as instantaneous
transmission of information. Even if we feel like a command from our brain to our
eyelids is instantaneous, but the chemical reactions that send the charge
travel slower than the speed of light. No matter what we may do to maximize our
position in the world we are living in the past. The reality that we all seek
for is gone in the microseconds between the waves of light bouncing off an
empty parking spot and that guy pulling into it because you forgot to dibs it
with your blinker.
For us on earth time is very one-dimensional.
The future is inaccessible to us. Moving foreword through our actions and
consequences is impossible. Time is going as fast as possible and it only moves
when we recognize what has happened. When we fail to recognize what has
happened or nothing happens time seems to slow down. If there are many
happenings that we choose to recognize, generally events that we enjoy, the
time speeds up. Time does fly when we have fun because our minds choose to acknowledge
and record more pleasant events that mark the passing of time. The movement of
time is a choice that we make based on how we record or to use a more
humanizing word remember. The more we want to remember the faster time flies.
It is no wonder that the word
remember is so prevalent in the teaching of the gospel. Every aspect of
understanding eternal truth begins with remembering. It is the first role of
the Holy Ghost to bring things to our remembrance. The Holy Ghost is very
limited in his ability to influence the unrighteous or unclean but the
instances where he has no sway over the hearts of man are far and few in-between.
As a general rule he is influencing us to do good in conjunction with the Light
of Christ. If he can’t bring revelation to those that have not qualified for
his gift or those that have lost it, he does the best he can with what he does.
Instead of bringing truth to our minds he will stir truth from our minds that
was already there.
When we go from line to line to
precept to precept it is the Holy Ghost that makes that process possible. The
current level of line or precept is only possible because of previous levels. It
is not line to line but line upon line.
The previous levels cannot go away and must be constantly accessed. They grow
in importance if anything as more layers rest on those initial layers and so on
and so forth. Consider a tower of janga blocks that grows higher as the game
progresses. At no point does the tower float in the air as it grows. It must
stay founded on the ground.
Nephi and Lehi saw a great and
spacious building that floated in the air. The building with no foundation was
described as the pride of the world but greater symbolism comes from the people
that inhabited that structure. It was filled with individuals that partook of
the fruit or reached the tree after following the iron rod but were persuaded
to leave and enter the building. They had forgotten, how valuable the gifts
they had, what got them through the mist and what the fruit had had tasted
like. They made irrational decisions without adequate information that they
once had but had lost. All they had was the people tempting them to join the
party lacking the other argument to stay and eat the fruit. They tasted and
forgot and made bad decisions. They must of entered the building somehow, and
they did, from the entrance on the ground floor. They then built up and up and
up and forgot about the foundation. There was a foundation, it was just
invisible, it was ignored by its inhabitants. They rejected the Holy Ghost to
the extent that he could not help them remember what they had experienced.
Several examples of these
principles are all around us. The scriptures in general are a blast from the
past. We don’t have any scriptures from the future. All scriptures are
spiritual records of the past with the expressed purpose of reminding us or
informing us of what has happened with the understanding that the same
principles apply. It’s the scriptures historical nature that allows the Holy
Ghost to work through its pages. The truth is testified of but the true past
makes the scriptures especially potent sources of revelation.
Teachings of the scriptures mimic
this pattern of remembering the foundation then building upwards. To begin the
final chapter of the Book of Mormon, Moroni’s exhortations begin with these
often-overlooked words. “Remember how merciful the Lord has been unto the
children of men.” Before a individual prays and reads with real intent he or
she must remember the storied past of God’s dealings that proves his mercy,
justice and willingness to communicate with his children. With this
understanding it is natural to hope that this pattern will continue and now
with faith the investigator can receive revelation as he or she prays with
understanding. When that individual remembers for the first time and
comprehends how merciful God has been, it is his or her first decision to seek
revelation regarding the Restoration. The investigator does not qualify for
direct powerful revelation, so he gets help remembering.
The
most basic principles of teaching are manifested here. First truth is taught as
recorded from the past that is borne witness of by the Holy Ghost. Then it is
remembered or accessed again by the influence of the Holy Ghost. Then
invitations are made to act on the remembered truth. That is why we always end
our teaching with the actions to take and not begin or use as the middle
material. The individual must use agency to remember with the Holy Ghost to act
on it. It must be there to be used.
Remembering
is one of the primary forces behind ordinances. Think of Baptism for example.
It is hard to forget the day and the moments where a whole bunch of people came
to watch you get dunked in water wearing a white jump suit. That is memorable.
Consider the sacrament and its wide expanse of sensory input. All the possible
inputs to be precise; tasting the bread, seeing the white cloth, hearing the
prayers feeling the water go down the throat. That is memorable. The
remembering of the covenants renews our commitment to them. Everyone remembers his
or her baptism, his or her first priesthood ordinance, first time through the
temple. Those physical actions that correspond to the inward decisions will
serve as a memory molder that we cannot forget. The motions combined with
decisions to change our lives and the feelings we receive from the Holy Ghost
are unforgettable.
These ordinances must be done
exactly right to create the desired effect. When the processes are corrupted
then they cannot be remembered. Consider the gross sin it is to baptize young
children. They cannot remember it. No matter how hard they try they cannot
remember what they did or why they did it. At an age of accountability we have
the capacity to recall later in life the event. Indeed they made no decision
and they cannot remember anything.
Thankfully we have been given
tremendous recourses to remember what we have been taught. However, the most
powerful influence on our remembrance is God’s inability to forget. I always
wondered why a resurrected Savior would keep the scars from the atonement. If
his body was perfect why would he keep them? They can serve as symbols for what
he has done, but I think it would be more symbolic to have them washed away,
leaving a perfect form. The answer comes in the writings of Isaiah.
14 But, behold, Zion hath said: The
Lord hath forsaken me, and my Lord hath forgotten me—but he will show that he
hath not.
15 For
can a woman forget her
sucking child, that she should not have compassion on the son of
her womb? Yea, they may forget, yet will I not forget thee, O
house of Israel.
This is powerful imagery. Can the
Lord forget his own creation? Can he forget something that he built and
sculpted and designed?
I
don’t think that the perfect God can possibly forget us in any way shape or
form. I do think that those scars on his hands feet and side are a powerful
reminder to us that he has not forgotten. We are engraved on his hands, both
the front and back, the souls of his feet and his side. We may forget him but
he will never forget us. A tattoo is a twisted form of these sacred symbols, as
is any mutilation of the body. Not only are memories recorded in the brain as a
pattern of chemical images but as blemishes continually before the eyes.
Instead of permanent good memories we have permanent bad ones.
In
summary our conversion to the Gospel is determined by our ability to remember
what we have learned. If we did everything we said we would do all the time
that would be perfection. In times of distress and loss we fail to remember,
and we mess up.
May
we remember to do what we learned all the time.
