This is sort of a mess. But it’s my heart and mind today.
One year ago today we left Arizona and moved to Oregon. I have consistent, contradictory feelings: On one hand feeling like we just left and the year has passed in a blink, and on the other hand feeling like we have been here for a lifetime and Arizona is just a faint, distant memory. Time and memory are weird like that.
I don’t let myself think about life in Arizona much. Whenever I think of Arizona, I just see faces in my mind. Colleagues. Former students. Ward members. Friends. Individuals. When I see those faces, my heart hurts.The best word I can find to describe that feeling may be the Portuguese term Saudade. Here’s the Wikipedia definition:
“A deep emotional state of nostalgic or profound melancholic longing for an absent something or someone that one cares for and/or loves. Moreover, it often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never be had again. It is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places, or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, and well-being, which now trigger the senses and make one experience the pain of separation from those joyous sensations.”
I truly love Oregon thus far. The people of Oregon have been amazing and we have wonderful relationships developing here, but my heart just hurts for relationships past. I feel a low-level hum of guilt and shame for opportunities squandered, for efforts that were less than full. I feel compelled to try to maintain relationships but lack the social and temporal bandwidth to pull it off. I want to tell people thank you. I love you. I’m sorry I wasn’t better. I fall short.
This Saudade is a feeling I don’t enjoy. When I find myself thinking back, I’m pretty quick to turn my thoughts to the future. What can I do here and now to make the most of what I’ve been given? I tell myself that in eternity, we will have an endless supply of time in which to allow every relationship to flourish. I don’t know how true that is, but it makes me feel better. And I do believe relationships are portable: “The same sociality which exists among us here will exist among us there, only it will be coupled with eternal glory.” (D&C 130:2)
That “sociality” is why we cratered the economy to slow down a virus. It’s why we care who becomes the next president. It’s why there are riots in cities around the nation, and why seeing those riots makes our hearts ache.
Life is about people. If not, then what instead? The worth of souls is great in the sight of God! And barring some exceptions, I believe the worth of souls is great in the sight of other souls. We may not agree on all the details, but a regard for the human soul seems in-born, and only suppressed by corrupt nurturing or sickness of the soul. This regard for each individual exists as evidence that the soul, eternal spirit and body, is real and true!
Love and pain are two ends of the same stick. Choosing to love is to invite pain. There is no better proof of this than in Christ. He loved the most, and he suffered the most. He surprised Enoch with his premortal weeping: “wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?” “I am exceedingly sorrowful, even unto death” he said as he approached Gethsemane. Even after descending below all things, Jesus still hurt for those he loved. While visiting the Nephites: “Jesus groaned within himself, and said: ‘Father, I am troubled because of the wickedness of the people of the house of Israel.'”
You can’t love your fellowman and not ache at the pain and suffering that surrounds us.
The Book of Mormon, written for our day, details all the same problems, and the solution, to everything that we’re dealing with. I know it’s not popular today to believe that some ancient book has the answers to our problems. Especially the Book of Mormon. But whatever. It’s true. I won’t try to outline everything here, but check out 4th Nephi.
Mormon 8. Moroni 7. Observe what leads to societal bliss and what destroys it. It’s all there.
Put me on the record: Only the love “of God, and the subsequent and related love of our fellow neighbors, can heal the wounds festering across our society. Whatever else we try will fail. “if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for charity never faileth.” Without individuals choosing morality and charity, no policy or legislation will suffice. As Elder D. Todd Christofferson taught in 2009:
“In the end, it is only an internal moral compass in each individual that can effectively deal with the root causes as well as the symptoms of societal decay. Societies will struggle in vain to establish the common good until sin is denounced as sin and moral discipline takes its place in the pantheon of civic virtues.”
The sort of change brought about by the love of God and fellowman occurs slowly, one at a time, as the hearts and minds of individuals are changed through persuasion and longsuffering. Moral change occurs from the inside out, it can’t be laid upon people like a blanket or administered like a medicine. It doesn’t sweep through nations like wildfire. It’s built slowly and carefully, like a building, while anger and hate can demolish with relative ease.
Thus, when it may be tempting to throw up our hands and admit defeat, our individual choices matter. Particularly regarding how we choose to think about, talk about, and treat each other. And while mine is pathetic flickering pilot light compared to the blaze that is the Savior’s, I’m choosing love, despite the pain that comes with it.
Brigham Rupp 