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I Went to a Thingie!

I'm not entirely sure what it was. I think it was the Democratic National Committee Youth Training or something like that. Anyway, when Jordan Morales from LDS-Dems of Idaho asked me to go and represent the caucus there, I think I was expecting it to be like a lecture-type situation with some age-hardened Democrat in front telling us youngsters how to get a tiny minority to become a driving and influential political force.

It was nothing like that. I walked in and there were a few people sitting around a table. They said hi and asked who I was and were overall very friendly. Then an old man started talking to me and being extra nice. Turns out he's the State Chair of the Democratic Party. Then some more people came in and we started the meeting.

I quickly figured out that this was not a group of young try-hards. These people were the real thing--most of them younger than thirty-six--and all of them had experience in politics, whether helping campaigns or running them or being a candidate. There was one guy there who said that his thing was he wrote non-discrimination ordinances. They were all representing a different caucus of the Idaho Democratic Party. All of them seemed to know everyone else and all of them had a good idea of what was going on. I had thought that someone was going to talk at me about the political process. I wasn't expecting to be a part of it.

I stayed for two-and-a-half hours. I listened about the different caucuses and their individual issues and then had a chance to talk about LDS issues. I got to rub shoulders with some of the most influential people in the state. Well, at least in the minority party in the state, so however influential that is.

But it was just so neat to be a part of that and to just bask in their commitment. It was very, very inspirational. At one point I looked around and thought, "If I wanted to run for office in the future, this is exactly what I'd need to be doing right now." Making connections, learning people's names, putting my own name into the radar and becoming a part of intrapartisan politics.

So who knows? Maybe someday I'll be one of them, sitting around and inspiring other young liberals to become more involved in politics at a state and local level.

Quoting a Quote

Thanks to the LDS Dems of Idaho facebook page:

“(Gordon B. Hinckley) said, ‘tell everyone you know we are not a Republican church. It does us no good to align with one political party. We need people in both parties to share the gospel of Jesus Christ,’”

- Scott Howell, 2012 U.S. Senate candidate from Utah

9/11

These are the faces of every person killed in the September 11th attacks twelve years ago.

Let's remember this as a time not to get revenge or to kick Islam out of the country, but as a time to strengthen our ties with other countries and religions so that this kind of disaster may be averted in the future.

The Greatest Good

The Statements

Nobody is born inherently good or inherently evil. Everybody is born ignorant and fallible and so are ambiguous, capable of both good and evil. Nobody is above the influence of evil. However, nobody is below the influence of good either and--if we allow it--good is stronger than bad.

The greatest good in the world is love. Sometimes we call it empathy, charity, friendship or devotion but they're all facets of the same thing. Priesthood power is powerful, but is dependent upon love for its potency. Without love, priesthood authority amounts to nothing. Love--and worthiness--give it power.

Conversely--and this gets wordy because there isn't really a good word for it--the greatest evil is disrespect for love, life and potential. Evil's goal is to get us to not realize our potential as Sons and Daughters of God, while Christ's goal is to get us to return to our Heavenly Parents and feel of their love with nothing--not mortality, not sins, not distractions--in the way.

Every person born has equal opportunity to do good or evil in the world. Every person has equal capacity to love and be loved but also to hurt. Let us make sure that we do take advantage of the first opportunity and--though we are human and will fail at times--that the good we do far outweighs the bad.

The Evidences

The scriptures talk about "the natural man" being an "enemy to God." I think some people interpret this to mean "because humans are naturally enemies of God, human nature is therefore evil." But I can't believe that humans are born evil. Then babies and little children--who we must include in "human nature"--would be monsters, though unaccountable before God of the evil that they do. I can't believe that. Nobody who has spent much time around little children could believe that. I can--however--believe that we are born inherently good and then become tainted with time. That makes sense to me, especially knowing where we came from as spirits and how Evil functions to bring us down.

However, it's not a very functional belief, at least in my head. As a Mormon, I believe that Evil is not allowed to touch or taint those before the age of accountability or--in most cases--eight years old. Yet I know that little children can do evil--or at least bad--things. It's not unheard of for someone younger than eight to kill someone--for an extreme example--which murder is definitely categorized under "disrespect of life" that I talked about earlier being the greatest evil. It's even more common to hear about young children stealing stuff or being mean to each other. If humans are born inherently good, then little children would not be able to do evil before Evil is allowed to touch them. Please keep in mind, I am not condemning little children. I do believe that--at least to an extent--they are not accountable for their actions.

I must draw two conclusions from all of this. First, are born neither good nor bad but as a tabula rasa as Locke suggested. Second, that there must be an amount of "original evil." We have the capability of doing evil without Satan's influence. I believe Evil's most efficient strategy is to work on the evil that we are already capable of or are already doing and then expound on it through temptation to the point where we do evil things without help. Conversely--and here I have no proof, only belief--there is also "original good," that we can be "agents of ourselves" without necessarily the influence of God. That's not to say that God doesn't influence us, maybe even most of the time. I believe all of us--God and Satan included--are players in a great game and although obviously we're not all equal, we're all on the same playing board. We all influence each other for good and evil and whether or not we win is based on what side we succumb to.

It is not blasphemy to say that priesthood is not as powerful as love. We manifest love in loving acts and words: service. We show love by serving. Priesthood is one means by which God calls men to serve. Priesthood is designed to give men an opportunity and greater capacity to love. Priesthood power can heal the broken and cure the ill, but only Love can change a person's soul. So while priesthood is important and necessary for certain ordinances, it's not as essential and far-reaching as love is.

Love is also more powerful than hate. Love is part of who we are. With very few exceptions, I believe we're born loving our parents, both on earth and in heaven. Human interaction inevitably will lead to love because the more we listen to each other, the more we understand each other. The more we understand each other, the more we realize how very alike each of us are. We grow to love each other like we ought to love ourselves. Obviously, there are exceptions to that, but they are outliers.

Hate stems from misunderstanding. We go into a situation and are confronted with a person we don't understand. Maybe their skin is a different color. Maybe they're fat. Maybe they're gay. Maybe they're rude. Maybe they're in a rival school or gang. Whatever the reason, we don't understand them and think we do. We grow to hate them because of the difference. We may even think they're inferior. That is judgment. Christ said to judge not, and that is what I believe he was referring to.

Hate and Disrespect for Life and Worth and Potential--again, there's not really a concise word for that--are synonymous. If we hate someone, we don't care about their worth and potential to become something more. We may even not care about their life. We might even seek to destroy it. That is why--I believe--murder and rape especially of children are the worst evil that a person can do. They are both meant to break a person and their worth.

The Conclusion

There's a Sanskrit word that I think is important for everyone to know. It's mahatma, as in Mahatma Gandhi. It means Great Soul and is ascribed to people who wielded much influence for good in history. For the purposes of this post, I'm going to change the definition slightly. I'm going to change it to mean a person who has the opportunity to wield much influence for good.

Look at Hitler and Gandhi. They lived around the same time, were both a part of the Nationalist-Socialist movement. They had very different rises to power--Gandhi from influence to greater influence, Hitler from obscurity--but had very similar power over and devotion from their peoples. They both tried to expand and strengthen the power of their countries. Actually, Gandhi referred to Hitler as his "dear friend," admittedly while telling him that he should not have done such-and-such.

The main difference between Hitler and Gandhi was what they did in the world. Both were mahatmas, both had the opportunity and ability to do great good. But one decided to destroy while the other decided to construct. One let hate and disregard for life control his actions, the other let his love of his homeland and all people govern his. Both died believing they had failed.

I believe that every person is a mahatma. We each have the ability to do great good and may we seek for the opportunity. But let us allow love and respect for each other--regardless of differences--govern our actions. If a Christian hates a gay person, then evil has started. If the gay hates the Christian back, then he is just as guilty. Love may be difficult--maybe even impossible, you feel--at times. But respect is always possible. We're not perfect, but we sure can try to be.