"We seldom get into trouble when we speak softly. It is only when we raise our voices that the sparks fly and tiny molehills become great mountains of contention."
This is a column originally written by Jeff Lindsay in 2008 and reprinted with his permission.
A young woman with
critical injuries is in a local hospital. I feel such pain when I
think what she will face when she awakens. One moment she was happy,
invincible, and having a great time with her friends. A moment later
she lost control of her car, reportedly at reckless speed, and bolted
across the median strip.
Will she recall the
terror of careening helplessly into oncoming traffic? Will she
remember the late afternoon sunlight flashing off the metal and glass
of the approaching Red Cross van, or the shock of its impact into the
passenger side of her sideways vehicle before all went black?
Her first question
might be what happened to Hannah and James, her friends on the
passenger side who took the brunt of the collision. When she learns
that both are now dead, and that the others are seriously injured
also, may God help her in her grief.
We mourn for the dead
and grieve with their families, as rightly we should, but sometimes
the loss and pain experienced by the ones at fault may be far greater
than we realize.
I will never forget the pain and trembling
of a man I met in Switzerland long ago who had just killed a
pedestrian. It wasn't his fault, he wasn't speeding, but he had
killed a person, and it was tearing him up.
Perhaps he could have
avoided it, perhaps he could have stopped faster, perhaps he ... I
hope he has moved on and found peace, but he said he felt like his
life was ruined. His pain was great though there was probably little
to blame.
When the tragedy occurs
through a moment of true stupidity and is clearly, undeniably our
fault, how much worse the pain. It is easy think of punishment, to
want the guilty to suffer, but sometimes they do, profoundly, without
any need for others to rebuke them. My heart goes out to the families
of the victims, but also to the one who was apparently at fault.
When we awake from our mortal lives here, when we come to our
senses and see just what we have done with our brief opportunity in
this life, for some of us it may be waking into pain as we confront
the harm we have done, the grief we have caused, the lives we have
hurt.
Our riches, our
luxuries, our titles and degrees, our honors and awards, the bloated
resume, the pleasures and parties, all that we coveted and conquered,
may be meaningless. What truly will matter is whether we loved
others, whether we obtained the miraculous and divine gift of
charity, a gift that is part of the grace that Jesus Christ offers us
when we allow Him to guide us and transform us.
Paul wrote:
Though
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity,
I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.
And
though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and
all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove
mountains, and have not charity, I am nothing. (1 Cor. 13:1-2)
Faith in Jesus Christ
is essential for salvation; hope of eternal life through the
forgiveness of sins and Atonement of Christ is essential; but without
charity, without allowing God to change our heart so that we begin to
love and serve others as Christ would have us do, we are incomplete.
1 Cor. 13 concludes with this statement: "And now abideth faith,
hope, charity, these three; but the greatest of these is charity"
(v. 13).
When we awake, may the pain of our misdeeds and
stupidity be long gone through the grace of Jesus Christ. May we
instead be blessed to look back on our mortal life as an exciting
adventure where we resisted the enemy of our souls and his pathetic
temptations, all dross and foolishness, and instead repented of our
sins, laid them upon the Lord, and followed the Author of our
salvation, who helped us to bless the lives and save the souls of
many.
Consider the words of the Savior in Matthew 25:
31
When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels
with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory:
32
And before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate
them one from another, as a shepherd divideth his sheep from the
goats:
33 And he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but
the goats on the left.
34 Then shall the King say unto them on
his right hand, Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom
prepared for you from the foundation of the world:
35 For I
was an hungred, and ye gave me meat: I was thirsty, and ye gave me
drink: I was a stranger, and ye took me in:
36 Naked, and ye
clothed me: I was sick, and ye visited me: I was in prison, and ye
came unto me.
37 Then shall the righteous answer him, saying,
Lord, when saw we thee an hungred, and fed thee? or thirsty, and gave
thee drink?
38 When saw we thee a stranger, and took thee in?
or naked, and clothed thee?
39 Or when saw we thee sick, or in
prison, and came unto thee?
40 And the King shall answer and
say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it
unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.
I think these are the
kind of people to whom the Lord may say, "Well done, thou good
and faithful servant: thou hast been faithful over a few things, I
will make thee ruler over many things: enter thou into the joy of thy
lord" (Matt. 25:21).
Passing an arcane quiz
on theology or Trinitarian metaphysics is not the ticket to joy in
the presence of the Lord. That ticket might be more closely related
to charity, a gift received through grace. I think it's the most
important thing of all, more important than what Church you belong to
or how accurate your theology is.
In the Book of Mormon,
Moroni, the final general of the Nephite people, a man who had faced
the horror of war almost all his days and had watched enemies wipe
out all the people he loved, turns to charity in his final comments
to future generations, to us:
Wherefore,
my beloved brethren, if ye have not charity, ye are nothing, for
charity never faileth. Wherefore, cleave unto charity, which is the
greatest of all, for all things must fail —
But charity
is the pure love of Christ, and it endureth forever; and whoso is
found possessed of it at the last day, it shall be well with
him.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, pray unto the Father with
all the energy of heart, that ye may be filled with this love, which
he hath bestowed upon all who are true followers of his Son, Jesus
Christ; that ye may become the sons of God; that when he shall appear
we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is; that we may have
this hope; that we may be purified even as he is pure. Amen. (Moroni
7:46-48)
May we follow that
inspired counsel and turn to the Lord more fully, that He may help us
to experience this miracle of charity. May we have charity for those
who mourn and face terrible or even unimaginable loss.
May we have charity
also for those who cause us grief, such as the young woman in the
hospital bed who may not yet know what sorrow and unimaginable loss
she has caused. This is so difficult, so unnatural, so unspeakably
divine — but not impossible through the power of Christ.
Jeff Lindsay has been defending the Church on the Internet since 1994, when he launched his
LDSFAQ website under JeffLindsay.com. He has also long been blogging about LDS matters on
the blog Mormanity (mormanity.blogspot.com). Jeff is a longtime resident of Appleton,
Wisconsin, who recently moved to Shanghai, China, with his wife, Kendra.
He works for an Asian corporation as head of intellectual property. Jeff and Kendra are the parents of 4 boys, 3 married and the the youngest on a mission.
He is a former innovation and IP consultant, a former professor, and former Corporate Patent
Strategist and Senior Research Fellow for a multinational corporation.
Jeff Lindsay, Cheryl Perkins and Mukund Karanjikar are authors of the book Conquering
Innovation Fatigue (John Wiley & Sons, 2009).
Jeff has a Ph.D. in Chemical Engineering from Brigham Young University and is a registered US
patent agent. He has more than 100 granted US patents and is author of numerous publications.
Jeff's hobbies include photography, amateur magic, writing, and Mandarin Chinese.