By Anne Perry

On the far more agreeable side, I am writing this sitting in an excellent hotel in Leipzig, Germany.  I am on the twenty-sixth floor with a panoramic view of the city, and in a little while I shall be off to the Book Fair, which is why I am here.

It sometimes happens that in planes one meets fascinating people.  More often, of course, it is someone glued to a laptop who doesn’t even know you are alive.  This month going to Leipzig was one of the lucky times.  The man next to me was an expert in Japanese martial arts.  He had actually been karate champion of the world.  He was deeply absorbed in the entire intellectual, philosophical and spiritual sides of the arts, as well as the physical.  He was a Canadian, living currently in Australia, with a Japanese wife.  And I met him travelling from Scotland to Berlin!  So his view was not only deep, but wide.  I wish the journey could have been longer, there was so much to explore.  I love hearing about other people’s discoveries of the more profound thoughts in life, and sharing my own. 

That experience makes even sharper in my memory another I had many years ago.  I was travelling across America.  On the first leg I sat next to a man who was a lawyer currently defending the women in a class action suit against Dow Corning regarding breast implants that had gone wrong.  I listened to what he had to say, and ended believing he could not possibly lose the case.  They HAD to be right!  Why on earth was Dow Corning even defending themselves?

On the next leg I sat next to another man, who was also a lawyer, and he was defending Dow Corning in the same action!  I listened, fascinated, to what he had to say.  He HAD to be right!  Everything he said made the utmost sense.  He couldn’t lose, why had the woman even bothered bringing the suit?

The lesson?  Thank heaven I am not on the jury!

There Are Always Two Sides

The lesson for life – there is nearly always another side to any difference of opinion, and if you listen to both, they may very well both appear to be genuine, honestly held convictions. 

How often are they simply two incomplete views of the same thing.

Sometimes a decision is necessary, even if it is wrong.  My father used to tell a story of a donkey who was walking towards a cliff edge.  One man shouted at it ‘turn left!’, another ‘turn right!’, both with the intention of saving it from going over the edge.  The donkey found both arguments so perfectly reasonable it could not make up its mind and choose between them.  The result – you’ve guessed – it fell over the cliff!  So sometimes a wrong decision is better than no decision at all.

But emotional reactions to reasonable arguments are not fair.  How many deep and violent quarrels between people, and nations, could be avoided if we really listened, and began with the assumption that those people are just as important in the scheme of things as we are, and although they may have a different, even dramatically opposite point of view, there is almost certainly some right in it, or at least some honesty.

We do not have to win - we have to be fair!  That may necessitate giving a little ground.  It is a pretty big thought at times, but God is Father of ALL of us, not just one creed, one nationality, or one cultural norm.

“I was sure I was right”, is not a very good answer when He asks us about having won a victory over someone else.  “I tried to be fair,” would serve a lot better.

We have had winter and summer again in the last few days since I came home, and today I went for a Sunday drive with a friend, as I often do.  As always we marvelled at the beauty of the world.  We passed lambs actually being born, sheets of wild flowers:  daffodils, white wood anemones, yellow celandine.  It is a month or so too early for bluebells or wild rhododendrons, perhaps two months for the hawthorn, laburnum and crab apple.  But the blackthorn blossom is white in the hedges.

Paying What It Costs

Recently I was talking with a friend about how we can all become as we wish to spiritually, but only if we are willing to pay what it costs.  But might we have to admit: ‘I want to be braver!  It is just that I want not to be hurt, embarrassed or humiliated even more than to be brave.

‘I want to be more honest!  But there are some truths I can’t bear to face, and I want to live in the comfort of delusion even more.

‘I want to forgive and be forgiven!  But I really hate So-and-so and I can’t let go of that old grudge until it’s paid off!

‘I want to be generous!  But I wish to keep what I have.

‘I want to encourage others and be generous of spirit!  But I can’t bear to be beaten, and I have to be centre stage – all the time.

‘I want to start over in lots of things!  But I can’t bear to admit I am wrong.  Humble pie sticks in my throat.  I can’t apologize to arrogant people who are never going to let me forget my errors.

‘I want to succeed!  But I am not prepared to work when I could be playing.  I am not prepared to lose the friendship and approval of those who want me to stay the same as they are.  I want good things, but I hate people being envious and giving me a hard time.

‘I want to stand up for what is right!  But I am afraid of being laughed at, excluded, on the outside of the group, not the inside.  Above all I am afraid of not being liked, or loved, of not belonging.  I want a lot of things, I just don’t want to pay what they cost!  Which means that I don’t want them enough.  I need to be honest and admit that to myself.  And rethink.’

Then I hope I say -

‘Yes I do want these things.  I may not like paying, but I will do so, and with grace.’

Easter Sunday, I have just returned home from Church, and it was all I could have hoped, truly uplifting, a reminder of all the gifts and the glories of human life and eternity.

Deep and Abiding Testimony

It was my lesson in Relief Society again, and the subject was the value of deep and abiding personal testimony.  I trusted that everyone had read the manual, and knew most of the things to strengthen testimony:  prayer, studying the scriptures, attending meetings and trying hard to understand the commandments and keep them.  I wanted to address those problems that are most likely to afflict us and cause us doubt, sorrow or despair.

Of course there is always the possibility of quarrelling, back-biting and general finding of fault, easy and ignorant judgements and self-righteous cruelty.  We are human beings, and joining the Church does not get rid of our weaknesses.  It is not for people who are perfect, but for people who WANT to be.

Among the things that threaten our testimonies is receiving Priesthood blessings which then seem to us not to have been fulfilled.  There are many possible answers.  We might have misunderstood the words of the blessing, heard what we wanted rather than what was actually meant.  Perhaps we got the timing wrong, heard the ‘yes’, and missed the ‘but not yet’, or the ‘after you do this – or that’.  It does NOT mean that the priesthood is wrong, or that God is not listening, or does not care.

Another thing that can test us more than we can take is unfairness.  We see those who seem to be good suffering, and those who seem to be bad being blessed over and over.  But God never, ever said it would be fair – in the short run!  If it were, there would be no such thing as virtue.  It is the Adversary’s plan that all rewards and punishments are immediate.  That way we all do the right things for the wrong reasons – and there is only enlightened self-interest, no passion, no courage, no honour, and certainly no growth.  We need to trust that in the long run, by the time of God’s judgement, all will be exquisitely fair – as God judges fairness, not as we do. 

Disappointment is hard, injustice burns.  It takes a very powerful testimony to withstand them and keep our concentration on the things that matter.

False doctrine is another wildly destructive force.  It is so easy to get hold of part of the truth and repeat it, unintentionally creating something that is not true.  Usually it is something that favours us, and excludes, belittles or wounds someone who is different.  I have heard some terrible errors repeated to those it could destroy.  I remember being told I could not possibly make the Celestial Kingdom – ever!  Because at twenty-seven I was not married.  And the man who said so believed it to be true. 

But what kind of sadism would reveal that, even thinking it to be fact?  Obviously someone to whom that damnation did not apply.  What is it in us that wants so desperately to exclude people?  How filled are we with hate that we leap to negative judgement so easily?  We have missed the whole point of the Gospel – love – love for ALL – not just some, not just our own, not just those like us.  There is no one except ‘our own’, no one who is not God’s child. 

Before we repeat something hurtful as doctrine, we need to be ABSOLUTELY sure it is the truth, and all the truth.  And then if it is something a person cannot help – still keep silent.  I have seen several people leave the Church because of false doctrine repeated ignorantly as the truth.

Perhaps the most dangerous problem is when someone in the Church does something that is, or seems to be wrong; a cruelty, a dishonesty, a betrayal, and they are not seen to be chastised.  We forget that it might happen and we do not know.  We think that if some are so deeply flawed, can the Gospel be true?

Yes, of course it can – and it is.  We are all human, and possibly fallible.  People may come and go, may steal, lie, betray, they may be cowards, mean spirited, self-righteous and vindictive and weak!

The Gospel is the Gospel of God – NOT of man.  The plan of salvation is still the most sublime thing in all creation, the light of the Universe, the perfect expression of the love which is the fount of life.  It is glorious beyond any power at all to tarnish or stain, to damage or make less.  Even Satan cannot injure it and certainly no human agency can.  It is God’s, perfect, whole and indescribably beautiful.

Don’t let anything at all rob you of it, least of all some petty spite, some human weakness, some misunderstanding or hope deferred.  That would be a true tragedy, and Easter is a time of infinite hope.  It belongs to all of us, grasp onto it and never let it go, for anything or anyone.

With a heart of joy and trust, grasp it forever.

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