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Loving as Christ Loves
By Anne Perry
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As is becoming usual, this is at least begun when I have an hour or two to wait
in an airport – Chicago O’Hare, to be specific. I have just had
a really wonderful visit to a mystery writers’ convention called
Love is Murder. It was only three days, but it really was excellent
in every way. I always enjoy coming to America, and mystery readers and writers in particular
seem to be particularly nice people. I have a theory that it is
because we have a superb way of exorcising all our more negative
feelings. If there is someone we really dislike, such as irritating
officials, tax collectors, traffic wardens, shop assistant who don’t
know if they stock something or not, and don’t wish to find out,
we can simply write them into a story as a victim of something or
other, and then feel loads better!
On a more serious level, I have come to think that writing fiction where you
create all manner of characters and need to grant every
one of them a certain dignity and validity of motive, passion,
honesty (at least to themselves), it becomes absolutely
necessary to understand each person and have some feeling
for them yourself. It is impossible to create a character,
look at the world through their eyes for any length of time,
and not care what happens to them.
One is forced to feel a certain degree of compassion, however one might disagree
with their actions, or even find them ugly or stupid. If
they have behaved badly, whom have they injured the most?
Themselves. They have become that which is without joy
or honour, and that can be pitied, but is hard to like.
Could anything be more tragic than that?
I read on long flights. I find it the only way not to loathe travelling, unless
there is someone interesting to talk to, and quite often
there is. The more I read, the more I find that the writers
I admire the most, and return to again and again, are those
who have compassion for their characters and show those
sudden, shining moments of pity for someone in trouble.
It may be someone quite unlike themselves, different age,
sex and culture, yet they leap across a gulf of difference
to share a common humanity. I will remember them long after
I have forgotten the story, however gripping it was at the
time.
As I said, the conference was a pleasure from beginning to end because the people
were so interesting, enthusiastic, passionate about their
craft, and generally kind. I made new friends, and found
old ones again. We talked of all manner of things, because
there is hardly a thing to do with human life, times and
places, emotions, questions of right and wrong, joys and
griefs, that cannot be found in a good mystery story.
Mysteries used to be simply a question of a crime, and then unravelling the
question of ‘who did it’? But that is long past now. Today
all the best ones that I know of are explanations not so
much of what happened but of why, and then of people’s reactions,
good and bad, complex and simple. There can be grace under
pressure, hasty judgement or compassion, the ugliness of
fear or the beauty of courage. All the complexity that
goes to make up humanity is there, its ills and its medicines,
success and failure. They are attempts to understand, to
make sense of things that go wrong, and thereby to see if
one can prevent them from happening again, even on the smallest
scale.
We will not prevent all crime or tragedy, but if we prevent, or ease, even one,
if we are wiser or gentler after we have understood than
we were before, if we judge less, and with pity rather than
self-righteousness, then we have achieved a great deal.
*
That brings me, at least in thought to the lesson I taught in Relief Society
on the last Sunday in January. I hope the thought it provoked
will last not only through February, but through all the
years to come. The subject was the Saviour. I was concentrating,
as the lesson directed, on our taking Him for our pattern
in all things. I asked the natural question, springing
from the fact that if we wish to be like Him, then we must
know Him: What attributes do we feel certain He possessed?
I admit I expected some fairly trite answers and was prepared
to dig a great deal further.
I should not have pre-judged, especially not in the negative. We spent longest
on what I thought was the most profound answer – that the
Saviour would never, ever condescend or patronize anyone.
He would not ‘talk down’ or make anyone at all, no matter
their status in society or even their sin or virtue, feel
as if He thought them useless or inferior.
And yet how often do we do that? In so many conversations do we not hear subtle
self-praise at the expense of others?
‘What we believe is right, therefore you are less worthy, less elect than we
are.’
‘We come from a country that has greater freedom, justice, honour than your
country, therefore we are superior to you. Our culture
is more refined, more honourable, we are better than you
are.’
‘We have better education, therefore we are more intelligent or refined than
you are.’
‘We have more material possessions than you, therefore we are more righteous,
our values are superior, less worldly than yours. You can’t
have these things without your treasures being of the world
– therefore you are worldly and we are spiritual.’
And so it goes on. ‘We have more children than you, therefore we are doing
God’s work, and you are not. We are more loved by family,
friends etc., therefore more righteous, and more loved of
God! We have more and higher callings in the Church, therefore
of more use to God, more favoured of God.’
Nonsense! If we say we love God, but do not love men, then we deceive ourselves,
and in the words of Christ, the truth is not in us.
And if we loved someone, could we wish to make them feel inferior, less loved,
less righteous, less likely to do anything well? On the
contrary, to do it blindly – because we do not think – is
to be self-absorbed and an unintentional failure as a disciple
of Christ. To do it knowing and meaning to, is to have
chosen to try to cripple others and ensure that they do
not succeed because we have convinced them it is pointless
to try. What darkness must be inside us if we do that,
what hate, what fear of our own emptiness and failure that
we must do all we can to ensure that others fail also?
No one else’s success can rob us of ours. We can only rob ourselves. It is
not a competition. If I have loved, if I have been generous,
patient, kind, brave, honest, or wise, then I have won.
If you are better or happier because of something I have
done, then we are both blessed.
And similarly, if I have put a stumbling block in your way, and you are sadder,
weaker, more discouraged because of something I have done,
or failed to do when I had the opportunity, then you have
suffered, but I have lost. It is my spirit that is diminished
and I who have limited myself.
I think we all left the class with a determination to be gentler, less self-righteous
than before, less praising of our own type of virtue and
more generous in recognizing those in others that we may
not possess. Nobody is unloved by God, nobody is
the wrong colour, the lesser sex, an inferior social status,
marital status, professional occupation, or lack of one.
If you do your best, according to your knowledge, and are
seeking to know the mind and will of God for you, then you
are at least close to perfect, possibly you are actually
there. Perfect is not a place where we are without fault,
it is a state of progress which is the greatest of which
you are capable.
I believe we all left both chastened by ourselves, and encouraged by each other.
I try harder to look at people and remember that Christ
did not ever ‘talk down’ to anyone. And He was morally
superior to all of us. If He did not, are we not absurd
and contemptible to do so? Ridiculous, certainly, but when
you weigh the hurt and the damage we may do, not the least
bit funny. There is nothing whatever to laugh at in destroying
the faith or the hope of another person.
*
So far we have had the oddest winter. It is early February, and Meg next door
to me has daffodils in bloom? (They are supposed to be
late March or April!) There have been sheets of snowdrops
in flower since the middle of January, but also pansies,
primroses, polyanthus, winter aconite and irises! It snowed
on Christmas Day, and I believe it snowed again when I was
away in the middle of January. That’s it! I haven’t had
to take frost off my car windscreen this year. The temperature
is in the 40’s and 50’s, and if you look on the map, you
will see we are north of Moscow or St. Petersburg or parts
of Alaska! But we have had winds. I think I mentioned
that before. Up to 135 m.p.h. in places, which is high
into the hurricane level. Life is full of the unexpected
– both good and bad, difficult and easy.
This is now resumed at home again. There is sunshine one minute and snow the
next, but not enough to lie, I think February teaches you
to be prepared for anything.
One thing I was definitely not prepared for was catching a chest and stomach
bug on the way back, and arriving home feeling so ill I
went to bed too tired and too sore to sleep. It is not
often that even work, or a good idea, cannot reach me.
However I had a blessing in the evening, and within a couple
of hours the pain left and I was able to sleep. Now today
I feel more human and am able at least to sit up and take
notice, even eat a little, carefully.
I think it does us good to be ill now and then. It teaches a bit more sympathy
with others, especially those who are ill often, or even
most of the time. But the moment one is well again, it
is so easy to forget. It is just as well we forget pain,
weakness, etc. – it might be crippling to live with the
memory too closely, but sympathy shouldn’t go with memory.
*
I see when looking at Meridian that all my past articles are referenced,
but there is nothing I can find mentioning the fact that
I have edited and published three years of them in a hardback
book, entitled Letters from the Highlands, dedicated
to Meridian, which has been available since before
Christmas, I am not exactly sure where. Some branches of
Deseret carry it, at least one in Portland, Oregon does.
The understanding was that it would be distributed through
all L.D.S. book outlets, but again I don’t know the result.
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The publisher, Granite P.D. in Orem, Utah, is only now coming to an arrangement
with Barnes & Noble, so altogether I have fallen rather
flat. I took such joy in writing it and creating a book
of it, I must say I am disappointed so far. But there is
always tomorrow.
The same has to be said of that beautiful and inspirational book, Sentinels
Along the Way, compiled by my friend Doris S. Platt.
(She also edited Friendship: Bread for the Journey.)
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The stories in that are personal from all the contributors, deeply moving, and
written from the heart. There are tears, joy and hope in
all of them. It is one of life’s deepest happinesses to
reach out and touch someone else, to share in their beliefs,
triumphs and pains, their moments of inspiration that have
made them who and what they are.
I wish many such experiences to all of you, such as I had in Chicago, and as
can be shared in books. Friendship is one of the most nourishing
foods of the soul. Take it in abundance.
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