I Didn’t Want to Leave Zarahemla

               Throughout my blog I have created various posts about my personality, growth, and my gratitude toward the “Come Follow Me” program.  Last week Bro. Wilcox shared a lesson on “Not Leaving Zarahemla”

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zRiZgJBzP-8&t=2852s

          Metaphorically that is where I raised.  I had heard about the outside world but had no desire to be out there among the wolves.  I feel blessed that so much of what others view as temptations were not tempting.  I never wanted to do drugs, smoke, attend parties, or what have you.  I was safe in Zarahemla.  That is where I wanted to be.

          I understand the need for some to leave Zarahemla in order to grow.  Unfortunately, due to poor choices, there are hardships that need to be endured.  It involves a lot of pain – not just for the individual who makes those choices but those who love said individual and don’t wish to see him or her be in bondage to dragons and such.

          We can choose our actions but not the consequence of those actions.  My siblings and I have always had great strength and wisdom to learn through the examples of others.  We watch and we learn.  I think my sibs are better at watching and learning than I am.  I still tend to judge others rather than look upon them with the same eyes as God does.  Still have not humbled myself but am working on it.

          I’m not happy to have shown what lies outside of Zarahemla.  And yet those are still my brothers and sisters who are living in bondage.  They may not be asking me to assist them directly – but there is a silent cry.  I know I need to respond.  But I would rather they come to Zarahemla than my going outside to look for them.  And somehow that feels wrong.  I need to go out among them without allowing myself to be swallowed up.  But to remain yoked with Christ for their return.

Philosophy and Religious Values

        I've been quite emotional for the last couple of weeks or so.  Watching "The von Trapp Family: A Life of Music" and seeing the horrors of bullying by supporters of Hitler. Crying over different stories featured in 60 minutes.  It's almost like five years worth of PMS took over.  What's up with that?

            In my philosophy class, I was supposed to take a quiz and post my results about taking the quiz.  I just now finished the assignment of what I learned about contextualism or relativism and explaining the similarities between those and virtue ethics.  Actually, I am only supposed to pick one value and one ethic.  I am really quite confused by moral values - which, by the way, are part of my religious upbringing and NOT philosophy.

            So I start off the discussion by saying that I really don't put much value into logic quizzes or emotional evaluations.  Keep in mind that I do not appreciate being analyzed and find the results of the test confusing.  I found the explanation of values even more confusing.  If I understand the definitions it seems I would fall into the category of contextualism more than relativism.  Even during the lecture I was in agreement but have not retained what it was I thought I had agreed to. So perhaps I accept either relativism or contextualism.  

"Let you give you an example and perhaps you can help me with the analyzation.

          "My mother has always expected each of her children to tell the truth.  She was a woman with a sixth sense or eyes in the back of her head or something.  She ALWAYS knew when we were lying.  Always.  The fact that we often got punished more for lying than whatever we had done wrong made us realize it would be better to just tell the truth and not bother with trying to hide it from her.  I was taught to tell the truth.  Not everybody has learned the same values I was taught.  I get that.  I can even accept that.  This next part of the post is what I'm having issues with. 

          "About ten years ago she was diagnosed with a form of dementia (she did not have Alzheimer's) and lost touch with reality - though in her mind everything she spoke was the truth.  Her children were told to "play along" and accept her reality - because really, what was the point in making her sad or angry by correcting her on something she was just going to forget in five minutes anyway.  When she was up for an evaluation, I opened the door to two strangers.  One sat with her and asked her questions while I took the other into my mom's room to show her what medications and dosages my mom was taking for various things.

          "When the two aides left, my mom got really defensive and asked why she had been interrogated.  I lied to my mom about who they were and why they had come.  [My exact words were, "Oh, those weren't your visiting teachers?" though I knew full well that they weren't] It was easier for both of us for me to do it that way.  That doesn't make it right.  The evaluation was more necessary than my telling the truth.  Still, it bothered me as I have been taught not to lie and there I was lying to the one that had taught me not to.  Is that contextualism or relativism? Does it matter?"

            Before I was more than halfway into my thoughts, I was crying about the lie and dementia and missing my mom.  I'm crying because my arm hurts as I haven't had it in a relaxed position while trying to operate the mouse.  I cry because I'm not able to have a face to face conversation with different family members like I used to. An uplifting post this is not.  Sorry about that.  But if it's of any consolation, I am feeling better than when I initially wrote this (I think it might have been Monday?)

What price do we pay for the choices we make?

           Each of us has the opportunity to make choices.  We choose to leave the house, transportation, destination, what we eat and so forth.  Often we are presented with obstacles as a result of our choices.  For example, we may have a variety of ways to get from point A to point B - do we want to take the scenic route or something faster.  If we had stayed in one lane could we have avoided the car crash that happens in the next?  What about those that we encounter.  How do our choices effect them?  And what about those things we can't control like the weather or health?  Often the result of our choices makes no difference.  Other times even the smallest decision may change our entire lives.

          I think "The Mountain Between Us" gives us some great illustrations of what our choices may cost.  

By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use, https://en.

wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=54196569

The movie opens with Alex, a journalist, at an airport in Idaho anxious to get to her fiancé in Colorado as her wedding day is near.  Ben, a neurosurgeon, is anxious to return to Baltimore as there is a ten-year-old boy in need of his service.

          All flights have been cancelled due to the weather.  Alex believes that she can overcome this obstacle by hiring a private charter flight.  She gambles on a pilot she's never met.  And while the weather is not a challenge for him personally, there is another factor that neither had even thought to consider.

          Alex, not knowing anything about Ben in addition to not knowing the pilot, asks Ben if he would like to join her on the charter plane to Colorado.  I would think if Ben is unable to get a flight to Baltimore from Idaho due to the weather, it would be likely that Colorado's weather would be similar - but whatever.  No one thinks about that.

          During the course of the movie, Ben and Alex are faced with more obstacles as they climb the snow covered hills of the Unitah Mountains in search of salvation, I thought about what the choice made had cost them - or changed them - because without the experience that only they shared - they would not have evolved from who they were prior to the movie starting to who they became afterward.

          I think the story itself was fictionalized, but I really enjoyed watching the movie and discovering another demonstration of just how much impact our choices may have not just on our lives but those around us.  I'm grateful that the unwise choice Jenna and I had made recently about crossing a fenced path didn't have such a dramatic result.  Funny thing is if we had started the other direction, I wouldn't have crossed it.

 So often when I go to Millsite, it's like I'm seeing it for the first time.