Guiding Principles

Since relocating our family to a small town in northern Idaho, Tracy and I have often pondered why people are so friendly.  I was recently convinced it's because they spend the entirety of their winters digging each other out when their cars get stuck in the snow.  Sacrifice changes people.
 
Life seems complicated sometimes, but I think a simple way to approach life is to be able to look back and not have a slew of victims in my wake; people I have wronged, people I have failed to care for; people I have judged, people who I have ignored. To leave this life without any accusers would be a great way to go out. This is the primary message we have recorded from Jesus to us. The Ten Commandments, focusing primarily on not creating victims, are fairly limited in scope. Jesus clarified when he summarized everything into the two great commandments; just love God and love your neighbors. It was important to be a good person before Jesus was born and showed us how. He was opposed by those that just couldn't understand why he acted and spoke contrary to their traditions. The organized religion at the time, with a line of authority reckoning back to Moses, charged him with blasphemy for following the two great commandments.

The charges and condemnations levied against us latter-day gentiles as prophesied in the Book of Mormon (see 2 Nephi 28 and Mormon 8), can be traced back to our behavior that creates victims in some way.   

• Robbing the poor and our contempt for the poor, needy, sick, and afflicted (2 Nephi 28:13; Mormon 8:37)
• Ignoring the hungry (Mormon 8:39)
• Preaching false doctrines (2 Nephi 28:9, 12, and 15)
• Persecuting the meek and the poor in heart (2 Nephi 28:13)
• Committing whoredoms (2 Nephi 28:14-15; Mormon 8:31)
• Murders (Mormon 8:31)
• Lying and deceiving (Mormon 8:31)
• Our many abominations.*  (2 Nephi 28:14, 17; Mormon 8:31, 40)

Each of these charges has a victim involved.  Each charge only occurs by the action or inaction of another (in the case of ignoring the hungry, inaction is still an action against that person).  You cannot lie or steal or murder or hate without creating a victim.  Makes you wonder about applying the word "sin" to behaviors that do no harm. If a person is alone in the forest and profanes and no one is around to be hear it, is it wrong?

What are those principles that each of us follow that shape our behavior in a given situation.  Do we self-preserve?  Are we focused on asserting dominance?  Are we easy-going?  Do we want to appear intelligent or funny?  Are we interested in seeing the world be met with justice or with mercy?  Do we want to serve and love and sacrifice?  I'm not quite sure how to identify your guiding principles.  Perhaps look at what your default reaction is when presented with choices; which reaction comes up most often.  It may take some self-reflection, some honesty, and some time.  I think self-awareness is a valuable thing to work towards.

Here's an example.  If I'm hungry and I have a sandwich, but someone approaches me who is also hungry and asks for a some money for food, how should I approach that situation?  It's not a trick question, but sometimes we treat it like one.   I promise you that 2 different people can approach this scenario from antithetical points of view, and both will consider themselves righteous while condemning the other. One will call the other selfish and the other will accuse of contributing to a potential drug or alcohol habit.  What is the right answer to this situation?  Is there a right answer?  There is if we are to believe the words of Jesus as contained in the scriptures.

Matthew 5:42 KJV  "Give to him that asketh thee, and from him that would borrow of thee turn not thou away."  

While boarding a plane from Anchorage  this morning, I witnessed 2 things that prompted this writing.  First, I sat down in my aisle seat and a couple minutes later a young man/woman couple approached and indicated they would occupy the middle and window seat next to me. Initially, the woman offered the window seat and told her partner that he would have more arm room. He was tall, fit, and had broad shoulders. He said he would be fine  and told her to take the window seat. She asked again and he insisted again, so for the 3+ hour flight, he chose to sit next to me (not a small dude) and studied up for a firefighter exam, while she slept seemingly comfortably, resting against the inside of the plane. I spent the flight leaning a little extra into the aisle to reward this guy for his selflessness.

Now on to a contrasting example. A woman and her son were seated across the aisle from me. Her approximately 8 year old son had the window seat and she sat in the middle.  When the flight was nearly filled, a flight attendant  approached the mother and asked if she would be willing to move 15 rows up further in the plane and occupy a different set of window and middle seats.  The flight attendant was looking to relocate a couple with a baby in a car seat and I guess this aisle seat was the only aisle seat open on the plane. The woman claimed that her son had a friend with a family sitting in the window seat in the row behind them and she didn't want to separate the friends.  During the entire flight, the friends spent their time playing games in their individual iPads and, to my observation, did not interact once, except for the few minutes at the end while we were deplaning.  In one of these scenarios, love and selflessness were shown; in the other, a victim was potentially created. Sacrifice is at the very heart of love.

Occasionally I succeed and occasionally I fail.  I have enough victims lying in my wake that I ought not be concerned about the behavior of others, but I do have a stake in the society I was thrust into and regularly partake of.  Can you imagine a place where no one accuses and everyone forgives?  Where love and selflessness are the guiding principles upon which all behavior is based?  Where sacrifice is the default?  Where forgiveness rules the land?  Where NO ONE passes a car stuck in snow on the side of the road regardless of what item in our schedule we could use to justify not slowing down?  That sounds wonderful, doesn't it?

*Think we know what the word "abominations" means?  We should take a closer look, because I don't think it means what we think it does.  Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed because of their abominations.  We should be sure we understand why that happened.