Delivery: Exquisite "Oneings"

My humanities class this semester required a creativity project. The teacher wanted us to create using a medium we aren't used to using. Poetry is a new medium I've used only twice and with no formal training, so I chose that. I felt to put more thought into the structure and words of the poem shared here in July and completely reworked it. (I'll post the new version below.) As I've spent more time with the poem, I've realized:

On a micro level this poem relates a personal experience unique to my life, but on a macro level I see it now as a symbol of our universal struggle of shedding the ego--even a form of ego as seemingly innocuous as wanting what we think God wants for us (to do or be). A favorite essay by CS Lewis, Weight of Glory, states with powerful imagery: 

It would seem that Our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak... like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased.

This shedding of the ego and trusting God's ways and goals is often referred to as a rebirth; giving our life to God, being changed by God. Through the experience related in the following poem, my perspective of what spiritual rebirth must feel like or look like has changed. It is no longer a culminating event that ends a process. It is many moments of delivery--exquisite and costly threads--that God weaves together, changing the fabric of our lives thread by thread. 

I no longer see delivery as getting what we want, or being delivered from what we don't want. I see it as engaging in a journey where we become a child--a child who struggles through the narrow mazes and trials of life seeking their God (like a baby's journey through the birth canal seeking it's source of life).

When we emerge, we find our lonely desert has become the garden of the Lord (Isaiah 51:3). It is like the moment of birth when a mother's agony is turned to joy (John 16:21), or perhaps more accurately, as a baby must feel after such a journey of struggle and sorrow that quickly turns exquisitely sweet because of the embrace from those hands "stretched out still" that have "caught us" as we emerge, embraced us, at-oned with us. 

I've quoted it here before, but it deserves a repeat, at least in part: 

We are aware that all our mothers give us birth only to pain and dying; and what is it but that our true Mother Jesus, He--all love--gives us birth to joy and to endless life. Blessed may He be! Thus He carries us within Himself in love, and labors until full term so that He could suffer the sharpest throes and the hardest birth pains that ever were or ever shall be, and die at the last. And when He had finished, and so given us birth to bliss, not even all this could satisfy His wondrous love.

Again, I am learning that rebirth appears to be moments of struggle, sometimes as intense as child birth, followed by equally exquisite "oneings" with the Lord. And I imagine the supreme goal of existence as an eternity of that at-one-ment with God; that fullness of joy in their presence. 

The atonement is not a commodity. It is not an event long ago that somehow affects us now. It is a divine being; our Savior, full of infinite love and wisdom whose actions and love make it possible to have a relationship with him. A relationship which, if we choose to nourish, will slowly align us and change us to become more and more like him. And the reason? Not so we can achieve some commodity (eternal life of riches, power etc.). He loves us into the kind of person he is so that he can be with us for eternity in a celestial glory full of celestial beings who don't have to hold anything back. They can give us all of their self without such intense Light and Glory harming us because of how Christ’s love has prepared us and slowly recreated us to be like them. I believe thats what is meant by John when he says, “Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)

Before I paste the poem below, I'm going to be lazy and not remove the numbers in parentheses. To give the poem some unity and structure, I decided to use a kind of numeric symbolism in the lines and stanzas. This being titled "Labor and Delivery," the number nine is significant. So is seven, as a number of creation. So is four as a number symbolizing strength and truth. So are ascending and descending numbers (and the numbers they start and end with). I put the numbers into the poem for the paper I had to write about the creativity process for my class. I imagine it might be helpful for some to leave them here. 

Lastly, I would leave you with one more thought. When we wonder why God has not yet given us desires we consider to be righteous or that we believe are according to his will, perhaps we should consider what C.S. Lewis suggests: our desires are "too weak." To have a husband or wife, a good job, children or more children, to be healed, to have others see us truthfully, to be at peace--all these desires pale in comparison, or are actually encapsulated and fulfilled in what the Lord wants to give us: at-one-ment with Himself. So he works gradually, knowing "as the poet recognized, sometimes, God’s grace, like light, “must dazzle gradually, or every eye be blind.'" (Emily Dickinson, quoted here) 

Labor and Delivery

Labor

Sunday

Severing pain asks a sacrifice. (9)

Needles, tubes, sterile sheets, monitors: (9)

breathless upon the altar, I writhe.  (9)

For me, there is no ram in (7)

the thicket. No angel (6)

stops the knife that stabs (5)

three times and steals (4)

the soul—all (3)

labors: (2)

lost. (1)

Monday

Eyes are open, heart raw, but beating. (9)

Salty tears flow too freely for a (9)

disconnected womb--oh! Dear Father! (9)

Why lead me by miracles (7)

to the Red Sea shore’s edge (6)

and part the waters (5)

as I walk through (4)

only to (3)

let hope (2)

drown? (1)

Tuesday

Bitter. Left at the foot of dead ends, (9)

anger opens in this closing heart. (9)

I cannot choose: a false god; no God. (9)

There is a God— (4)

I've heard Him weep. (4)

I know His pow’r: (4)

enabling grace. (4)

By Light we live, (4)

By Him we're changed. (4)

Impossible maze! I cannot choose: (9)

an indifferent God; a cruel God. (9)

He called to me; (4)

Woke me; asked me: (4)

“Open the door.” (4)

He provided, (4)

assured, sustained; (4)

soothed each loss… (4)

Yet now life’s open door must (7)

sever from its hinges? (6)

Now, He let’s life stray— (5)

lets life bulge, bleed, (4)

burst—‘till they (3)

stitch it (2)

shut? (1)

Then call me Mara, for today I (9)

choose to see the bitter hand dealt me. (9)

While friends and family choose (7)

to call me blessed... and oh! (7)

The words they send, (4)

the meals they bring, (4)

the gifts that come: (4)

prints to color, (4)

Boxes to hit, (4)

Roses, posies, (4)

daisies, lilies, (4)

books, texts, posts, hugs. (4)

What was emptied, (4)

they seek to fill. (4)

Wednesday

fatigue 

sorrow

lights off

eyes shut

head down

heavy sleep

let me sleep

buried

in sleep

no dreams

to think

no thoughts

of life

within

while… (1)

without, (2)

children live; (3)

by my side their (4)

voices call and hands (5)

caress, lips kiss, hearts care, (6)

and all their eyes are watching. (7)

And so I wake (4)

my mind’s desire (4)

to understand— (4)

write what I know, (4)

ask all I don’t (4)

And oh! The Light (4)

rushes in with (4)

a choice revealed: (4)

It was not a loss. 

It was a birth:

of sorrow and pain,

grief and anguish

now remembered no more...

Delivery

... for joy that the impossible maze (9)

widens and opens as a child (8)

sobs into the Light caught by (7)

Hands stretched out still embraced (6)

by Love and nourished (5)

by unspoken (4)

Words of Life. (3)

Morsels of Goodness

My left wrist's tendinitis I've been babying for over a year finally decided to call it enough. For the first time since 11th grade, I'm in a long-term brace again. Typing and playing music is reduced for the rest of the year. How grateful I am for music students and my children who give me the opportunity to still work with music. And thank you Mac for making a dictation tool on my laptop!  

This will be short and sweet. Morsel's of goodness that are nourishing my soul. First, a poem from a poet I have begun to discover:

Christine Rossetti, Later Life: A Double Sonnet of Sonnets, #5

Lord, Thou Thyself I love and only Thou;

Yet I who am not love would fain love Thee;

But Thou alone being Love canst furnish me 

With that same love my heart is craving now.

Allow my plea! for if Thou disallow, 

No second fountain can I find but Thee;

No second hope for help is left to me, 

No second anything, but only Thou.

Oh Love accept, according my request;

Oh Love exhaust, fulfilling my desire:

Uphold me with the strength that cannot tire, 

Nerve me to labor till Thou bid me rest, 

Kindle my fire from Thine unkindled fire, 

And charm the willing heart from out my breast.

This last morsel needs a little introduction. 

I have had a great desire growing in me over the year: to learn of the searches for truth great minds had embarked on and what they had discovered. I have also felt I needed to be accountable for such searching. So I acted upon this growing feeling last month and registered for classes.  I’ll be working on a second degree, this time in philosophy; one or two classes at a time, going slow and absorbing all I can. 

Then last week, I was at the bookstore purchasing a little book for a friend who had lost her mother recently. Sitting next to that book was another that called to me and I let it tag along to the cash register. 

And it has happened again! I felt a nudge. I acted upon it, and soon after, I am led to find beautiful words that express the feelings I could only feel and stumble to explain. I read them again today and feel such nourishment from truth that I would be greedy not to share it with my "neighbors." 

We will not be able to develop his heart within us with only a surface understanding of our fellow men—or with alienation because of difference, whatever the source of that dissimilarity. In this wonderful world of knowledge it is easy to learn. Is not this part of "the gathering"? We rightly call this age the "dispensation of the fullness of times." Notice that the phrase is plural—“times,” not “time.” We want all the best from every age and corner of the globe. 

… One day my teacher gave me a compass. It was a simple instrument with a sharp point on one leg and a pencil secured at the tip of the other. She showed me that by planting the pointed leg firmly and stretching out with the other leg, I could draw a perfect circle. 

… As I grew I was taught how to draw another circle by a divine teacher, one that encompassed truth, beauty, and goodness. The spiritual compass also has two feet—one I call “the fixed foot," and the other, "the searching foot." We all have this spiritual compass. 

… It took a good measure of spiritual maturity for me to realize that the great question of mortality was not really to find the one to church among all the false ones; rather it was to discover where truth and goodness and beauty had reached their most mature form and plant my fixed foot there. That is the critical starting point: Where will we place the fixed foot of our life's compass?  

There can be no true or complete circle without a center. 

… Placing the fixed foot is only half the task, not the whole of life's journey: We would draw the circle.  

…Truth is too grand to be found in such small dimensions. It is scattered around the world, God distributing his wonders as widely as the sower throwing grain. God would have the harvest cover the whole field. Light is given not only in the scriptures or through prophetic inspiration, but in multiple ways. Our Father in Heaven is a light–giving God and dispenses it as widely as the stars. 

… I have learned that there is a tremendous amount of truth we can circumscribe if we reach out with the searching foot. Is this not as important as planting the fixed foot? We need to get them in the right order, of course. We do not wish to go dancing on both feet through the offerings of the world, picking up bits and pieces of truth here and there without ever taking the time, energy of thought, and introspection to find our fixed point. There is a certain intellectual and spiritual laziness in that approach. Discovering the right midpoint will give us the best perspective of the whole, the broad view from the peak, the best chance of encompassing all truth and avoiding error. Remember you cannot draw a perfect circle without an immovable center point.  

… I believed that my Father in Heaven is a loving God toward all his children. My idea of him was often difficult to align with this rather limited understanding of his interaction with humankind. What of the Chinese? What of those in India? He speaks often of his voice penetrating even the isles of the sea. What about those during the centuries of darkness we call the Great Apostasy? Surely God would speak to humanity through every voice he could find. I firmly believe this. God has many voices. If we cannot hear his voice in that of a prophet or apostle, perhaps we can hear it in that of the sage, or a poet, or a philosopher, or playwright, or an artist. Their voices also find their roots in God. In time, I came to desire—to hunger for, really—these other voices. I sensed I would have to reach my searching foot far afield to bring them into my circle of understanding.  

That reach has made all the difference in my life and in my love of God.  

… Almost always in the Scriptures, light is interchangeable with truth. The light of Christ is his truth—that that which he has given us. With the light of Christ as our foundation, our point of planting, we are free to explore and encouraged to augment. 

… At times, I fear that we receive the Lord’s beautiful light only to continually gaze at it reverently. Is not the purpose of light to push back the darkness? Is it not to see with greater clarity? As the Psalms testify, light was given that we might see with it and discover new and enhancing truth… what I marvel at is how much God has accomplished with ordinary people who are also part of flawed humanity. We can't have pure Saints—or profits, apostle's, or holy man for that matter. We need to quit perpetuating the myth that they exist. 

… Other than Jesus Christ, imperfection has been true for Joseph Smith, Moses, Peter, President Thomas S. Monson, or any other scriptural personality or living leader. To believe otherwise is to deny humanity.… The greatest personalities are still part and parcel of their surrounding culture. 

… I repeat: God has many voices. I believe he desires to get as much goodness, beauty, and truth as he can into the lives and hearts and minds of the people of this world…. “Know ye not that there are more nations than one?” the Lord asked (2 Nephi 29:7). Let us answer, “Yea, Lord, we know. We have reached! We have searched!…”

               ~ S. Michael Wilcox, 10 Great Souls I want to Meet in Heaven, xv-11.

Love, Conduit of Light pt. 2

While rereading this quote I had shared on my cousin's scripture study fb site today, some thoughts begged to be expressed. I realized as I wrote the feelings that came that it was the second part of this previous post about love being a conduit of light that I had not felt ready to write yet. First, the quote:

Faith does not exist by itself. Faith requires an object. It must be faith in something or someone. In that respect, faith is like love. Love cannot exist without an object.... Love is meaningless unless it is directed toward something or someone. We love our parents. We love our brothers and sisters. We love the Lord.

      Faith is the same. If we think we have faith, we should ask, faith in whom or faith in what? For some, faith is nothing more than faith in themselves. That is only self-confidence or self-centeredness. Others have faith in faith, which is something like relying on the power of positive thinking or betting on the proposition that we can get what we want by manipulating the powers within us... faith in the Lord Jesus Christ is a conviction and trust that God knows us and loves us and will hear our prayers and answer them with what is best for us.

      In fact, God will do more than what is best for us. He will do what is best for us and for all of our Heavenly Father’s children. The conviction that the Lord knows more than we do and that he will answer our prayers in the way that is best for us and for all of his other children is a vital ingredient of faith in the Lord Jesus Christ."   

~ Dallin H. Oaks, April 1994

I have experienced so strongly how important it is to examine what we dominantly have faith in (our self, our culture, another person, an idea etc. OR Christ), because what we have faith in creates a link; a conduit.  

We feel this. It is as real as gravity or any physical force (like the quote from Interstellar expresses), yet it is a spiritual force. Pondering and connecting words we use to describe that link (such as "faith," "love of God," or "covenant") helps me identify and examine the state of this link.  If our connection with Christ is weak, then it (our love or faith etc.) is a weak conductor of his Light; his healing, creating, strengthening power. 

The more I learn of my Savior, the more sincerely I want to ponder (and realize often by the Spirit's nudges) what is causing the link to weaken or erode. Taking time to remember when I have been nourished by this "spiritual umbilical cord" before, my desire increases (and I feel direction from the Spirit how) to act in ways that can repair the gap--such a conduit is alive and fluid, strengthening or weakening in every moment. 

("Forgiven" by Greg Olsen). I've always loved this painting for how it symbolizes that link between me and Christ with the clasped hands, between his purity, power and glory (white robe), and my mortal state (blood red robe); for its visual reminder that such a link is the most beautiful and nourishing thing I can experience in this life--worth every effort to seek and sustain. 

With my eyes opened, I now have a choice: I can choose things that feel they increase light--strengthen that link with the Source of Light--and with that added light, I have more power to chase away darkness (resolve the gap in the link). Or I can ignore the gap and receive less light; understand less truth; experience more darkness. Because Christ is the Source of all Light and life, I have experienced that distancing myself from him is like a plant hiding from the Sun (isn't it interesting, the plants that produce edible fruit that is most nourishing are never shade plants).

Examining, assessing, feeling out this link, acting to strengthen it, and feeling love, power, healing, and peace increase from that relationship with Christ is what I feel is expressed and envision with the word: atonement. The atonement was not an event. The at-one-ment is now. It is a process of the at-one-ment between my Savior and I in each present moment. 

So in this moment, I choose to love, to bind, to connect, to commune: To have faith in Christ.

anniehenrie.com

    ... each of you needs to build a reservoir of faith so you can draw upon it when someone you love or respect betrays you, when some scientific discovery seems to cast doubt on a gospel principle... You need to draw on your reservoir of faith when you are weak or when someone else calls on you to strengthen them. You also need to draw on your reservoir of faith when some requirement of Church membership or service interferes with your personal preferences....

     Faith in the Lord Jesus Christ prepares you for whatever life brings. This kind of faith prepares you to deal with life’s opportunities—to take advantage of those that are received and to persist through the disappointments of those that are lost.  ~Ibid.

Words That Move Me: Forget Me Not

The Agony in the Garden by Frans Schwartz

It's Easter week. Today is Thursday. It is the day of the Garden of Gethsemane. Tomorrow, the crucifixion and burial. 

I gaze at this depiction of Christ and the angel in the garden and these events over two thousand years ago feel especially close and present. They are events no longer about some distant religious figure, the Son of God. They are events that are intimately connected with my life. 

"I desired more physical light in order to have seen more clearly. But I was answered in my reason: "If God wishes to show thee more, He shall be thy light. Thou needest none but Him." For I saw Him and still sought Him, for we are now so blind and so unwise that we never seek God until He of His goodness shows Himself to us; and when we see anything of Him by grace, then are we moved by the same grace to try with great desire to see Him more perfectly. And thus I saw Him and I sought Him, and I possessed Him and I lacked Him... He wishes to be seen and He wishes to be sought, He wishes to be awaited and He wishes to be trusted."   (Julian of Norwich, The Complete Julian, p.95)

What I have seen increases my desire to see and to be "oned" with him. It pulls me in almost like gravity, but instead of an irresistible weight, Divine Love gently waits for me to turn and to seek. When I do, it does not resist me. 

"When we are on a spiritual plateau, it is necessary for us to understand that we cannot go beyond that plateau until we increase our level of sacrifice and our ability to move one step further." 

(F. Enzio Busche, Yearning for the Living God, p.92)

There is power in sacrifice; in acts of divine love. Plateau's are meant to be moments for us to catch our breath and then to continue on. Sacrifice is the spiritual weight lifting of life. It must continue to increase if we are to grow. But it is more than that. 

Sacrifice is the highlighter in the book of life. By giving what we could love most, we reveal the center of our love; what pulls us in; what we orbit. 

And Enoch said unto the Lord: How is it that thou canst weep... The Lord said unto Enoch: Behold these thy brethren; they are the workmanship of mine own hands... and in the Garden of Eden, gave I unto man his agency; And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me... and the whole heavens shall weep over them, even all the workmanship of mine hands; wherefore should not the heavens weep, seeing these shall suffer?" (Moses 7:29-37)

But whoso keepeth his word, in him verily is the love of God perfected: hereby know we that we are in him. (1 John 2:5) 

 And behold, I say unto you that if ye do this ye shall always rejoice, and be filled with the love of God, and always retain a remission of your sins; and ye shall grow in the knowledge of the glory of him that created you, or in the knowledge of that which is just and true.  (Mosiah 4:12)

Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:39) 

I feel him increase the pull of his love; he extends his loving hand and invites me to stretch and grow; to increase my level of sacrifice and progress; to come nearer.

"The highest bliss that exists is to have God in the radiance of endless life, seeing Him truly, experiencing Him sweetly, all peacefully enjoying Him in fullness of joy. (And thus was the blessed face of our Lord shown, but only partially.) In this showing I saw that sin is most opposite to this, to such an extent that as long as we are mixed up with any part of sin, we shall never see clearly the blessed face of our Lord. And the more horrible and the more grievous our sins are, the deeper distance are we from this blessed sight for that time." 

(Julian of Norwich, The Complete Julian, p. 329).

Time is different with God, scriptures teach. "God lives in the eternal now where past and present, and future are constantly before him." (Neal A. Maxwell) 

To me, that means the at-one-ment is now. We can come into the yoke with him now. And he enters that garden with us and takes it all upon him now. 

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls." 

(Matthew 11:28-29)

What is left for us becomes a burden that is light (Matthew 11:30). We are able to bear it with such a loving companion at our side. 

The only real security is not in owning or possessing, not in demanding or expecting, not in hoping, even. Security in a relationship lies neither in looking back to what it was in nostalgia, nor forward to what it might be in dread or anticipation, but living in the present relationship and accepting it as it is now... One must accept the security of the winged life, of ebb and flow, of intermittency. 

    Intermittency - an impossible lesson for human beings to learn. How can one learn to live through the ebb-tides of one's existence? How can one learn to take the trough of the wave? It is easier to understand here on the beach, where the breathlessly still ebb tides reveal another life below the level which mortals usually reach."

    (Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gifts from the Sea, p.100-101)

Such tides reveal the truths of eternity we otherwise cannot see. The ebbing eternal sea at such times pulls back its veil just a little and opens our eyes... 

I have taken shells of wisdom as tokens of what I have seen at such ebb tides. Many are gathered here on this page, but I warn those who pass by:

While these shells are beautiful, you will no doubt recognize they are missing something. You have saved shells revealed at ebb tides in your life. You know how in showing them to others, you cannot bring to their mind what comes to yours: how they were buried in the soft white sand, or were hidden, caked in seaweed and mud. They cannot feel how long you had to dig, the seagulls song in the air, the cliffs, the rocks, the roar of the wave, the foam, the smell of the salt, the torrid sun, or the biting wind. You cannot describe the fear you may have felt at the vastness of the sea before you, the storm that may have raged, or the calm lapping waves that may have brought an unusual peace while you gathered wisdom's shells. 

Shells are important to take with us; a remembrance. But they are only ever a piece of that one present moment. "They are only there to remind me that the sea recedes and returns eternally." We must return to the beach or their meaning fades. 

My shells are words that move me. They bring me back there, to the beach. They represent what I feel and know: His love is infinite. His love is intimate. 

 ... The prophet Abinadi further states that “when his soul has been made an offering for sin he shall see his seed” (Mosiah 15:10)... For many years I thought of the Savior’s experience in the garden and on the cross as places where a large mass of sin was heaped upon Him. Through the words of Alma, Abinadi, Isaiah, and other prophets, however, my view has changed. Instead of an impersonal mass of sin, there was a long line of people, as Jesus felt “our infirmities” (Heb. 4:15), “[bore] our griefs, … carried our sorrows … [and] was bruised for our iniquities” (Isa. 53:4–5). The Atonement was an intimate, personal experience in which Jesus came to know how to help each of us.

 The Pearl of Great Price teaches that Moses was shown all the inhabitants of the earth, which were “numberless as the sand upon the sea shore” (Moses 1:28). If Moses beheld every soul, then it seems reasonable that the Creator of the universe has the power to become intimately acquainted with each of us. He learned about your weaknesses and mine. He experienced your pains and sufferings. He experienced mine. I testify that He knows us. He understands the way in which we deal with temptations. He knows our weaknesses. But more than that, more than just knowing us, He knows how to help us if we come to Him in faith.   

(Merril J. Bateman)

This Easter week may be the time when the world remembers. But He never forgets. 

And I hear him calling in each present moment, "Forget me not."  

"Forget Me Not" by Annie Henrie

How to Train Your Dragon - Or the Natural Man

This week, my husband and I took our kids to the dollar movie theater and watched How to Train Your Dragon 2.  My aunt had treated us to the film when it first came out so this was our second time seeing it. I had also seen the first movie a few times as my kids loved it and we purchased it. Because of this, I was quite surprised it took me so long for the following symbolism to hit me, but it wasn't until walking out of the theater this last time that my eyes were opened to some pretty profound symbolism hiding in this little kids film.  I guess I should warn you this likening post assumes you've already seen the movie so if you haven't... I'll try to write in such a way that reading it will hopefully only enhance your experience when you watch the movie. 

How to Train Your Dragon, Option 1: 

Fight it!

If you remember the first movie, the citizen's of the Viking city of Berk were often running into trouble with the dragons that would often visit their land to feed on their sheep and in the process would destroy buildings and sometimes harm their people in their wild raids, using each of their many unique abilities in self-defense against those attacking them.  After seven generations of the Vikings trying this approach, no progress was made with this option - unless you count the often upgraded and rebuilt buildings replaced after old ones were burned or destroyed during the violent conflicts :-). 

How to Train Your Dragon, Option 2: 

Force it!

In the second movie, the conqueror, Drago Bludvist, is amassing a dragon army. His approach to dragons is to force them into submission through the force of his will, violence or pain. He doesn't love the dragons, but uses them to rule over others - not caring if the dragons or others suffer pain or die in the process. In the city of Berk, many years before Hiccup is born, Drago met in council with the leaders of the city and said in essence, "I can control the dragons that harm you, let me be your leader and you'll never have to worry about harm from dragons again." This seemed so absurd, the leaders of the city laughed in his face. Drago retaliated by sicking his dragons on the group, and burning them alive. Only Stoick the Vast, who would be chief of the Vikings, survived. 

How to Train Your Dragon, Option 3: 

Train it!

By the end of the first movie, Hiccup, the slight-of-build yet inventive and adventurous son of the massive Viking chief, Stoick, finds out by accident that dragons aren't inherently evil. Instead, he learns that when befriended and loved, the dragons can become fiercely loyal, protective, and loving friends. Together, Hiccup and Toothless (his dragon), bring peace to Berk in the first movie and teach the members of his city to learn the great benefits of training their dragons, not fighting them. 

In the second movie, where the world is now a much bigger place when able to fly upon the backs of dragons, Hiccup and Toothless, are more loyal and in tune with each other than ever. They experience great trials, but also great joy. They travel to lands they never would have reached alone (Toothless can't fly without Hiccup whose inventions are needed to compensate for injury to his tail). On these journeys, they both come to discover in deep ways who they are, the strength they have, and what their purpose and power is in building and leading in their kingdom. 

How to Train your... Natural Man

If you haven't guessed, the symbolism I saw the other day in this movie is in the three ways I see the world has tried to approach training what is often called in the scriptures the "natural man" or the natural woman. 

Option 1

The first approach to the natural man is the gut reaction to fight against it. We experience what the untrained and wild potential of the natural self can do and the destruction it can cause when untamed and we are enraged. Curiously, when using this option, there are few (though there are those) who fight against their self. More commonly, we distract ourselves from our own dragons' destruction by focusing on fighting against other people's untamed dragons. Then we blind our eyes and numb ourselves to the guilt we feel for the fires we've lit and the cities we've destroyed with things as simple as entertainment or as complicated as addictive substances - all the while dwelling in ruins and spending our time rebuilding instead of progressing.

Option 2

The second approach recorded over and over throughout history is to call that natural self inherently evil. To rely on other mortals ever-willing to tell us they will protect us from our natural tendencies because they have them under foot (like Drago symbolizes when he puts a dragon under his foot in the movie). In milder ways, this option presents itself in the belief that children would never want to learn unless forced, or that people would naturally want to hurt each other, steal, plunder etc. if not forced to be good. And I guess they have all the efforts of those trying option 1 to prove their point. 

Option 3

But, as I continue to find, it is the third alternative we need to seek. That is the alternative Hiccup finds in the movie. And it is the one that we can find when we come unto Christ with a prayer similar to this one uttered by the people of King Benjamin in the Book of Mormon:

And they had viewed themselves in their own carnal state... And they all cried aloud with one voice, saying: O have mercy, and apply the atoning blood of Christ that we may receive forgiveness of our sins, and our hearts may be purified; for we believe in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, who created heaven and earth, and all things; who shall come down among the children of men. (Mosiah 4:2)

A wonderful description of what option 3 looks like is found in the Q&A on the companion DVD to the book, For Times of Trouble by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland:

Audience Question: It seems one of life's most difficult challenges is really becoming the kind of person who has the traits like patience and charity; someone who has overcome the natural man's tendencies toward anger etc. I'm just wondering what you think I can be doing daily to actively try to acquire these [character] traits and how I might begin to see my progress?  

Elder Holland: What a sweet question with all the right motive and all the right theology. You mention the natural man or the natural woman. I think my answer would come in how I define who a natural man or a natural woman is... We do not see people as born inherently evil, we do not see people as despicable, so for us, I think “natural man” doesn’t mean inherently evil and really troublesome and a bad [person]. For me, the “natural man” means something like: natural resources. It’s kind of like a river. And until we shape it and until we disciplined it; until we kind of maybe dam it a little bit where it needs to be [dammed], or encourage it a little bit there where it might be a little more free flowing—but it is working with a wonderful resource and a potentially powerful and beautiful and terrifically constructive thing—that, for me, is what it means to deal with the natural man or the natural woman.  

So, do that with yourself.  Don't be too hard on yourself. Don’t beat yourself up. Don't think you're worse than you are. Don't think you're evil. Don't think every day, every hour of your life you're falling short because you are not. You've got this natural capability and you're supposed to shape it the way we tame rivers and timbers and the other natural [elements of this world].  

... In this natural resource God has given you, it means something about your zest. It means something about your zeal. It means something about your desire to accomplish a lot, and do more and be more. So just don't be too hard on yourself and surely don't be hard on other people... but see it more positively.  If you can see it constructively, then I think the quest day in and day out—and it will be a quest, you’ll have to work on this, or these or other kinds of things like anger etc. all of our lives— but find the virtue that is lurking in there somewhere. Channel it, restrict and restrain the damaging part or the bad parts; the destructive parts that wouldn’t bless people, and then steer that natural gift into a wonderful and very attractive aspect of a Latter-day Saint's life.  

I think of people who are naturally happy.  Well, you could be obnoxious about that, or you could be offensive, so you guard against the excess of that and you guard against light-mindedness and you guard against silliness, But you surely don't criticize yourself or berate yourself for the good part of that: that when you're happy you can make a whole room happy. When you’re happy you can make a whole family happy, or a ward happy etc. if we do this right.  

So I am the eternal optimist. The glass isn’t just half-full with me, the glass is so full it is rolling down the hill and over and through the woods to grandmother's house. I would always encourage you even as you work on serious, truly challenging personality traits or natural inclinations you have, to see the good in yourself, see the potential good in the discipline of it. Work on the discipline part and then find that what was—like is recorded in the book of Ether (12:27)—what was a weakness and may have been given to us as a weakness, is there to be turned into a strength and will become a strength. The very thing you thought was a limitation lo and behold someday you’re wonderfully, constructively victorious in that category. I just would encourage you to be positive about it while you work on problems.

In other words, we will find the most purpose, power, and progress if we choose the option 3 Elder Holland describes. As I explored in my last post, there is a great and wise purpose for this natural world and natural self I am continually learning more about. 

As the doctrine of the LDS faith teaches (as I understand it), the atonement of Christ was our Savior going through the required process to be intimately aware and familiar with each of us. His atonement wasn't just to "pay for our sins." It was to make him our Savior for every aspect and consequence of this natural world - so that he can help us train our "dragon" and progress and become like our Father in Heaven. Because of Christ willingly submitting to that process, He knows how to succor us in times of trial and trouble. Because of his at-one-ment with us,  we can choose to come unto Christ and he has the power to heal us and help us.

If we choose him, he will "show unto [us our] weakness. [He] give[s] unto men weakness that they may be humble [the purpose of this natural world and the natural self is to teach us to depend on Christ]; and [his] grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before [him]; for if they humble themselves before [him], and have faith in [him], then will [he] make weak things become strong unto them" (Ether 12:27).

And let us not forget: part of that atonement was what he suffered on the cross, but he didn't just die for us. He rose again. And was given the knowledge and power to raise us all. In fact, the doctrine in the scriptures is that all those who chose to come to this mortal world - no matter if they choose faith in Christ while here or not - will be reunited with their natural man - their dragon - and gain immortality. Immortality being different than Eternal life (the kind of life God lives).

So. We are meant to keep our dragons - these mortal bodies and the natural self that comes with it. They will follow us, like it or not. What is ours to decide is:

How will we train our dragon?