Is Mormonism optimistic?

Last updated on: April 22, 2015 at 9:01 pm by J. Paul Valley

Is Mormonism optimistic? 2015-04-22T21:01:51+00:00 J. Paul Valley

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I’ve been having a problem with optimism lately. My last two blog posts were basically just exercises in much needed mental cleansing. I feel alone at church and all my friends are leaving, etc. You know, young person stuff, I guess.

But I’ve been fighting harder lately. Getting in the ring to punch out pessimism. ‘I believe this stuff” I keep reminding myself, “so I gotta figure out how to make this work and make it work well.”

A big part of my efforts toward optimism is a sort of reconversion. I’ve been reading a lot about Jimmy Carter lately, for various reasons, and I can’t help but be inspired by that man’s faith. I’m sure at least a sizeable portion readers here aren’t huge fans of his, and that’s certainly ok. But I am. For reasons that extend well beyond his politics (but I’m down with that too) I feel like the story of that ‘ol peanut farmer is the right kind of inspiration for me right now.

Reading about Carter has reminded me of how energized I am by the thought of Jesus. I count myself among those who seek and cherish mystical experiences, and stories of being “born again” deeply enthrall me. I can be just as skeptical as the next guy, but I’d be lying if I said stories of spiritual enlightenment didn’t make me a little jealous.

So I’ve been searching for just that: To be born again. That’s not a language we use a lot in Mormonism, but I’m no longer scared of it. I used to be, but I’m not now. Yes, I know I’ve already received the proper ordinances to be counted among the Children of Christ — baptism, endowment, etc. — but I need a little pick-me-up. I need more. I need to be reminded. I don’t know what exactly this will look and feel like, but I want it nonetheless.

Going to church, however, doesn’t seem to be as helpful in this regard as I’d hoped. And the reason comes back to optimism. My search for spiritual rejuvenation keeps tripping on the broken pieces of a world that’s apparently falling apart. More and more, the Sunday school lessons I attend focus on how hard and terrible the world is out there, and how we must band together to fight it.

The problem is, I enjoy the world. Not The World, in that vague Babylonian sense, but in a very real way I enjoy the world around me. When I walk out the door, I have friendly neighbors. I feel enriched by movies, books, music and walking down the street. Every now and again I get to see the moon and stars and it makes me happy.

But these things are attacking me, I guess. Because, you see, my neighbor is also gay. And even though I know everyone is always careful not to put it in such harsh personal terms, I’m being told every Sunday that he is trying to attack my values and ruin my family, or something. The movies I watch and music I listen to are poisoning my thoughts, even the ones that acted as temples for my mind during the hardest period of my young life. My solace and inspiration was fake, I am told, because I heard 4 f-words instead of 3. The beat was too heavy, the lyrics too raw. Everything around me is an attack on my values and my worth and, especially, my faith.

But in real life, my faith is — and always has been — a saunterer. For the most part, I get a lot out of life, and the biggest inspirations come from the most unexpected places. That keeps me guessing, and it keeps me experimenting. Poking around, without fear, to see what I find. Failing at things, stumbling into places I probably shouldn’t be, has left me with a profound respect and gratitude for feelings of regret. I wouldn’t understand happiness without them.

One of the most inspiring, and optimistic, elements of Mormonism (IMHO) is how connected our spiritual selves are to our temporal experiences. According to the Book of Mormon, the body and spirit together make the soul. So to me, the spiritual without the temporal isn’t sufficient. “If you wish to dance, dance!” Brigham Young apparently said one time. And because I choose to interpret brother Young’s sayings as I please, I take that to mean, “Temporal pleasures are a physical manifestation of spiritual delight!” How optimistic!

But then I am reminded and reprimanded. Not by scripture so much as by the fear of those around me, injected into my malleable little brain. I am supposed to be scared. Or at least it seems that way.

People much smarter than I have told me that the word gospel means “good news.” So what do I do when the news doesn’t sound so good? When a Sunday school teacher begins to cry partway through his or her lesson because “it’s getting so terrible out there,” am I supposed to feel optimistic? That doesn’t sound like good news. And, I don’t want to be that guy, but the idea that “it’s good news because we’ll be fine, it’s those who fail to defend the family that will suffer” doesn’t sound like great news either. I cherish my friendships, and many of my pals are among those who make up the “out there” types. Good news to me is that they’re going to be ok.

When I thumb through church history, I can’t help but feel the presence of optimism pulsing through Joseph Smith’s teachings. Maybe this is an ahistorical reading, but it seems to me he landed during a time when people were confused about God, worried for their families, and scared of the future. People were dying all around, and they needed a little reassurance.

“Good news,” he told them (eventually), “God has revealed that the relationships you build here on earth will last through eternity. Also, pretty much everyone is going to heaven and the conventions of protestant Christianity are shortsighted. The canon is open and God is just as miraculous as he’s always been.”

Now, I know that there was certainly some bad news back then too (“we’re moving again. Also, polygamy”) but my buffet-style Mormonism can’t help but focus on the optimistic stuff. The faith in community, love of family and yearning for unbound truth. I know they were very apocalyptic about things back then, too, but I sometimes wonder if it’s time we learn from their mistakes in that regard.

The early saints experienced so much hardship and uncertainty, and yet the world kept turning. America survived a Civil War, Depression and two major world conflicts that occurred within 30 years of each other. We made it. We’re still here. When I was on my mission in South America, I don’t remember talking much about how bad things were getting. I do, however remember talking about the marvelously optimistic message of the atonement. No one down there needed to be told the sky was falling. For many of them, the sky had already crash landed. The future was full of nothing but hope.

Maybe that’s naïve, but I believed it then.

As I struggle toward this possibly quixotic sense of spiritual rejuvenation, I can’t help but miss President Hinckley. That man embodied optimism.

“I am asking that we stop seeking out the storms and enjoy more fully the sunlight,” he said. Those are possibly the most memeable words ever, but there’s a legitimate profoundness to them. I think about them almost every day. Finding the sunlight is not easy, and one thing it requires us to do is question whether or not we are creating our own storms.

Sometimes I just want to raise my hand in Sunday school, when I notice the lesson escalating to The Point of No Return, and say “can you teach me how to love instead? That’s hard, and I need help. ” But love is optimistic, and maybe we really aren’t supposed to be optimistic. But how can we not be? Isn’t love exactly what we’ve been charged to defend? Can love exist without optimism?

And for those of you who despise a blog that ends in a rhetorical question, I personally don’t think it can.

Mormonism, politics, Romney

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