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.
5 comments:
What a polite rebuttal, Sis. Morgan. I had a mission companion who, when someone slammed the door on us, would often say, "they've had their chance, and they denied it." It always irked me when he said it. That's real easy for a couple born-n-bred Mormon missionaries to say.
I feel similarly about Tanner's statement concerning the boy. What position are you, Tanner, or any of us in to say the kid's crime was the final lousy act in a succession of choices for which the he is accountable? It seems wiser and kinder to assume there were factors we--in our complete families, our whole minds, and our nice homes-- don't know and probably can't fathom.
If this post was a long way of saying that the Colts are greatest team in the history of the world, then I agree with you. Did you see them blow out the Ravens this week? It was 30-0 two minutes into the second quarter for crying out loud. You're absolutely right, Sharon. They rule.
OK, that does it, Jaren. I've secretly sent the mafia to cut your TV cable and take you back to the night SNAKES who'll suck this football babble from your throat and spit it out over the rock cliffs in the darkest canyons of sunny Arizona.
Blog it up:
It occurs to me that choice and agency do not always involve physical consequences. I do not accept that people are entitled to choose everything that happens to them, nor do I accept that people would choose to have bad things happen to them simply to experience a bad thing. The when and the how? I dunno, but there are over six billion agencies freely choosing these days. The choices will inevitably overlap - or, better, collide. To say that we don't have agency because someone else's choice influences our options, however, is a Chicken Little - little chicken, approach to life.
The "thing" description, I realize, is not particularly vivid, but that is because the bad "thing" that befalls you or me is entirely subjective. Just as ten hours of FA 100 may be a bad "thing" from my seat, breaking ice and waiting for ducks bomb out of the sky may be a bad "thing" from another seat.
Maybe my choice isn't whether or not I have MS, but whether or not I'm going to enjoy life regardless. Maybe my choice isn't whether or not to be "born-n-bred Mormon," but whether or not I'm going to acquire a testimony of my own. Maybe my choice isn't whether or not to be wronged, but whether or not to use it as an excuse to be wrong.
I can't deny that I'm a silver-spooner. I can't think of one thing that I have ever needed that I've gone without. Did I want to wear XJ900s or Lee jeans to school? Nope, but I sure had shoes and pants. Did I need a pair of Michael Jordan Nike's or SilverTab Jeans? Nope, and I sure didn't have them. Did I choose to pout? I sure did. My choices pale in comparison to hordes of others, but they are my choices.
For no explicable reason, my brother was born with a condition that prevents his joints from ever reaching "normal" flexion or extension. His feet folded back against the inside of his legs, and my father didn't know he had feet until the doctor pointed them out. My mother had to drive him to the physician weekly for the first months of his life, so the doctor could remove his casts, snap-crackle-pop his ankles, and re-cast them in a sprained position. He has had more surgeries on his feet, ankles, knees, and elbows than years of school. Not his choice. He headed back to Rexburg this weekend for the Winter Track. His choice.
Still, he chooses to be content with the choices he has. He has a bright, observant mind. He chooses to recognize his limitations, and he chooses to be happy. I know of no person with a better excuse to be full of disdain and despair. His "I can't" list would stretch to Phuket. His "I can" list, however, says, "Phuket?, no I'd rather enjoy it."
The temptations of life seem as much mental as physical. Consequently, the choices we face ought to be as much mental as physical. We are told that God created two kinds of things: "both things to act and things to be acted upon." 2 Nephi 2:14.
Christ was both something that acted, and something that was acted upon - mocked, scorned, ridiculed, beaten, and crucified. His ultimate choice, or act of agency, was to act. "These things I have spoken unto you, that in me ye might have peace. In the world ye shall have tribulation: but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world." John 16:33.
The boy – not adjudicated yet, so – accused of killing his mother has some mental issues that I do not understand. You can argue that the boy's actions aren't his fault, but you can't argue that the consequences aren't now his. At some point, he chose. Now, I like to think that it was a gradual deterioration of mental/impulse control, but perhaps it was a Hollywood-esque free-fall from sanity. Wiser and kinder principles may govern a choice, but they have little to say about the temporal consequences. I don't pretend to know how God's judgment will work, but I can tell you he'll have a bloodstained soul until then.
Easier said than done? You bet, unless you're a mute. It has to be easy to say, otherwise we'd never try it. The hard news of life, despite Disney's efforts to dispel this fact, is that my/your dream may not come. Sometimes, honesty will only land you on probation or in jail. Extreme Home Makeover won't likely drop to Brazil to tile any dirt floors. And John Wayne was gruff, but correct, when he barked "try'n don't get it done" at the poor kid who couldn't stutter out a warning.
It is possible that God could tempt or try us beyond that which we are able to bear, but why would He only promise Isaac Morely not to? D&C 64:20. No, it seems that our choices - mental or physical - determine how quickly we drown. That's not to say we can't be thrown headlong into an ocean of unchosen consequence, but we ultimately decide if we are going to rock-up or flail before we sink.
Tanner, I agree with you on every point you've made about free agency. In fact, your argument is well thought out and beautifully illustrated. Nice writing. I just feel you error on the side of justice, and leave “mercy and forgiveness” out of the program. I also think you underestimate the jagged rocks you'll walk over before you die. Your over-confidence says to me that you have not entered a room yet where you'd almost rather curse God and die than make the choice you know you must make--sometimes a choice pushed into being by OTHERS. Our agency is not so free, Tanner. As I see it, we have only one choice—to love God—even when we don’t understand Him.
Quick transition--Carver is a good example, but a stronger example of courage is your mother and how his fight with life has affected and changed her. Carver has never known what it's like to have a normal body, so how can he miss it as you or I would. Yes, he watches others, but he fights within his limits. However, your mother, I believe, was stretched beyond her limits after many hospital visits that I'm sure she came to dread with a deep loathing we can't even imagine. She watched her son in almost constant pain month after month, year after year. Carver’s trials are really hers as well (1) because she was helpless to stop his pain (I know something of this feeling; as a mother, it’s agonizing. I’d almost rather die myself than go through it. (2) And because, unlike Carver, she DOES know what he will not have in this life. Hers is the greater choice to have courage. Her choices were harder. Even though I have never enjoyed her friendship, I would pay tribute to her because mothers sometimes go through what Mary must have felt. To kneel at the feet of a cross where her son hung on nails and died—in front of her--and yet she was restrained and remained completely helpless. She could not—just like your mother couldn't —take Him in her arms and make it all go away, How did Mary do that? I cannot even imagine it, and I hope she had a great part of the Spirit given her to bear it. I just realized this is why I have always loved Michelangelo’s Pieta in St Peters.
Anyway, sooooo, come to New York with us next time. We’ll show you some cool underground Subway guitar players.
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