Tanner, I posted your picture today, so you won't go into withdrawal after seeing two of your pictures in the BYU-I class schedule. Those are W.C. pics. aren't they? You scene stealer, you.
Hey, I wish you weren't still such a graphic writer. The image of the rage-soaked boy knifing his own mother haunts me, as do some questions about free agency. When you said "There's nothing free about this kid's agency now"(that's such a great line), I thought
this boy lost his agency long before he grabbed that knife. But when and why did he lose his agency? And how much did he have in the first place? The same amount as you or I? I'm so intrigued by "when and how," though as in this case, it's often a moot point. I think of this kid's intense anger and rage and wonder . . . because anger is always a secondary emotion, which usually starts with sadness or comes from fear, and fear makes most of us act like animals. I'm not trying to justify what this boy did. I just wonder what happened in his nightmare life to push him past living in reality. Why did he make this decision to plunge a knife into his mother's head? When did he make this choice? Did he just wake up that morning and say, "Hey, good day to kill a mom?"
You say that you believe all emotions and chemistry are rooted in choice, which implies that every act has a choice attached to it, which is when it gets very complicated for me. Something makes my head ache about that idea. I see a six year old in Iraq get his leg blown off, and I think, "Whose agency is working here? His? For being in the wrong place at the wrong time? Pres. Bush's agency? Whose? That’s at the other end of the spectrum, but still, some choices people make seem so limited to me. Or it’s like listening to a candidate who promises massive changes once he/she is in the White House, when I know that all new presidents are very limited in decisions they can make because of the circumstances they inherit with the office, and because of the “time of season, the time of man.”
I remember Elder Holland's talk and Elder Bedner's on the same topic. I thought, "So true, how wise. And who would choose not to forgive? Who on this earth would choose to purposely be offended and stay offended? What a small and closed-down way to live." Then my shirt was soaked with tears because I thought of all the people I know who are filled with such agonizing pain that they can't even spell the word "forgiveness" yet. I thought of the long walk they must take with the Savior before they get past the pain to see what forgiveness really is. I thought of little girls now grown into W.C. assistants who've learned to walk very quietly in the shadows, so as not to call attention to themselves. Some voice deep inside still warns them to walk here--on the very edges of life (long after they’re physically safe) so Dad or Uncle Harry won't hear you and come looking. Or slice your arms to shreds tonight because your body was involved in a horribly wrong act, and that will punish it for you. And they don't even know they still hear this little voice. Is this a choice? Of course. Is it a negative choice? Yes, it keeps them from living fully, but it's a choice born out trying to survive because someone bigger-- someone they trusted and loved-- betrayed them and used them like rubber dolls you buy at stores. Their choice, which governs how they live now, came about as a reaction to someone else's free agency. When families are ripped apart by whomever or whatever, Tanner, how much agency remains in the ruins? Aren't we all just scrambling to get to a safe home again? And when we don’t feel safe, we run, or numb ourselves, or get angry. When I see a snake, I shrink up inside and freeze in utter horror because I’m so afraid of them. I can’t move. I can’t help it. It’s a reaction. So, explain this to me? It all sounds so hopeless and helpless.
I remember when I first started walking with my head down--always looking at the ground-- because so many bombs were falling that I couldn't look up without fear of my head splitting open. The world was agonizingly ugly. Now, the bombs don't fall so much, but I still walk stooped over. Choice? Yes. But isn't there a difference between free agency and choices one makes from an instinct to survive? You are wise, Tanner. I think you understand something I don't see. Yet . . . when you draw causal connections between mercury poisoning and our decision to eat fish, I want to say "Whoa. Hold it." The mercury poisoning that kept me in bed, studying plaster on the ceiling, for two-three years while I was married to your uncle came from having soft teeth (gene pool--didn't choose that one. Or did I?), and my mother taking me to a dentist, when I was nine, who filled my mouth with mercury (an odd practice still around). I can't see a choice I made to get this illness. Once I had the mercury removed (an excruciating experience), I started to heal, but that took another year, and I did not heal before my children had suffered from my absence. They made choices--very young--to fill up holes in themselves from not having a mother around, so where is their
free agency. They made decisions out of a need to survive a situation created by me? But, again, where was my agency in this? Did you choose your M.S.? I don't think so. Do you choose how to react to it? Of course. But you have an education, a safe, well-lighted house, lots of family who adore you, and someone warm in your bed every night who probably even laughs at your stupid jokes. So, your agency seems freer to me than some other's, Tanner.
What I'm saying is that for some people, this life has many dark crawly caves where the only choice is "to be or not to be" until they come out in the light again. And if they are strong enough to wait it out and fight an intense heart battle, they usually make it. But many people are not strong, Tanner. Really. And waiting for that light--sometimes it's a long time coming--takes more faith than they ever thought they'd be asked to give, more faith than they have, until they realize they have no faith left, and they have no place to go but to ask God for a gift of faith--or they will die. (And maybe this is a state of grace rather than one of tragedy, Tanner. To see the hand of God moving in your life is no small thing.)
See? I just go round and round about this. Of course, you're right and the brethren are right, but thank God for a Savior who stays with me--He stays--and (for me) that is the highest praise I can give, and He holds onto my children in our darkest places also, healing and speaking soft peace until some of the blood stops filling up our mouths and ears and eyes, until we can turn--and on our own--finally--as we begin to feel like the earth is not going to drop away underneath us again, like we might be safe for just a little while--forgive and forgive completely. I don't know, Tanner, I just don't know. It seems to me that choosing to not forgive or to stay offended is more a choice made out of fear and pain rather than one made out of revenge or anger. Otherwise, who would not choose to do it? This doesn’t make the choice less wrong or make the consequences go away, but I think it’s complicated. I don’t think we can judge. It’s like the beggar in Luke who lies under the rich man’s table to catch his crumbs as dogs lick his sores. If we saw him, we would say, “Get up. Get a job. Geez, this is America. Get an education. Stop whining that you’re hungry. Do something for yourself or you deserve this.” But he didn’t do anything to better his state while he lived, and he was taken directly up to Abraham after this life. So, is it that he couldn't
do anything? Maybe he was ill, insane, incapacitated by brain chemicals, but the Lord allows it? Or is he just a symbol to highlight the evilness of the rich guy in purple. As in the beggar wasn’t real?
You said "we anticipate and accept some consequences as fair, and we don't anticipate or accept others. Our foresight doesn't seem to influence the consequence, but our ability to accept, adapt, and advance may shape our next choice," and this sounds so wise. But if we cannot anticipate consequences, how is our agency free? Or if our choices are made under the intense influence of other's agency, how is our agency free? I just don't get it. And I’d welcome any enlightenment because all this just bugs the crap out of me.
However, having said “nothing” in a long-winded down the valley way and . . . speaking of irritation and anger-- Jaren Watson, if you send me one more football score or long e-mail discussion about the injured QB of whatever stupid football team plays this week, I'm goin' bring a football down to your backyard and bury it where the sun don' shine. I DON'T CARE ABOUT FOOTBALL, you stupid Tucson novel writer.
Guess who breezed into my office right before we marched through graduation in the Hart? Yep. The great breezer of all time--Gregory Fox himself. Bearded, handsome, excited to see Kimberly, taller? or did I shrink? Wow. It's good to see old friends. He's rich, thinking about grad school, still grins all the time he talks like he has a big secret he's going to tell you. He's writing, but it sounds like it's for other people--not his "truest blue voice" stuff, and he wants to party with AZ people after Christmas. As I sat in the Hart with the December graduates, wishing I'd talked him into sneaking away for dinner, listening to a speaker encourage students to build the right "study environment" (a little odd for an exit speech), I thought of the many days Greg and I have been through, many hours, thousands of minutes.