“I wonder if…”
“May I preface my remarks, even as Benjamin did, with a disclosure of my background and a declaration of my motive and intent.”
She has such a beautiful mind! I love the way she shows her thoughts and feelings beautifully and articulately.
She said her two addictions were compulsive eating and perfectionism. She has never spoken of this second one before in her story. She said her perfectionism “drove me to the gates of insanity and spiritual death.” I like her assumption to see her readers (or hearers in this case) as herself. She makes assumptions which may not be always accurate but are appropriate. I like that she assumes her readers struggle with her same problems.
If it were me, I think I would have to include a line of disclosure on this point to say something like ‘I recognize that we are all different in many ways. We each come to this life with our own gifts and talents, as well as our own challenges and weaknesses. But there is one thing for certain that we all face in common and that is the opposition of life. We are all in the struggle for our souls and desire to find peace and joy. In my talk tonight, I recognize that your challenges may be different than mine in the sense of the details, but I invite you to ‘liken these thoughts unto yourselves’ by substituting the details in my struggle with the details in yours. If you do this you will see the resistance of life that is yours may have a different name, but the opposition to our ability to lift that weight is in equal proportion to our own individual abilities. Though we may have different shades of color that make us unique, we are all in the box of crayons together.’ (see May 2011 Conf talk “Remember that kindness begins with me.)
I agree with her claim of spiritual dyslexia. Only I read the other day in “Drawing with Children” that dyslexia is a dysfunction in reading only. It says, “Dyslexia actually means dysfunction in reading. Dysfunction in writing is called Dysgraphia, and dysfunction in math is known as Dyscalcula. Psychologists… lump all three of these …together.” In this case of spiritual dyslexia she says its root is the “tendency to reverse the order of the written and spoken word of God. Thus we “have eyes to see, and see not… ears to hear, and hear not”.
Symptoms:
- “We find the gospel neither easy nor simple. Instead we are frustrated and bewildered, wandering in a modern wilderness of stress, anxiety, discouragement and depression.” (This is her assumption of specific struggles being like unto herself.)
- “We act as if they teach us that the “letter,” the outward activity, “giveth life”. We desperately try to alleviate our disease by escalating and intensifying our performances and seeking to improve our appearances.”
This is what Jesus was talking about (Matt 23:27 ) when He spoke of the Jews being whited spulchures on the outside and having filthy houses on the inside. I once heard it described in Sunday School as having ‘public religion’ without ‘private religion’. I imagine and liken it unto what is Seen, and what part is not seen. Like a ball (or if you prefer you can imagine an iceberg) floating only partly above water. A person who is aligned to God has 80% under water, and 20% or less above water. A hypocrite who has not yet recognized his own sins is right-side-down and has the intent to show the 80% and hide the 20% or less. His tail end is sticking up out of the water and his head is buried in self-deceit.
“Though it plainly states “come unto Christ, and be perfected in him,” before it continues with the otherwise impossible charge to “deny yourselves of all ungodliness,” some Latter-day Saints may perceive and believe thusly: “Deny yourselves of all ungodliness and [then] come unto Christ.” Having read it in that order, we launch off on a campaign of self-improvement, sincerely striving, knuckles white, to deny ourselves of all ungodliness. With set jaw and a countenance that would scare a child (and often does), we set about to “clean house”, ourselves, meanwhile ignoring the gentle knock of Him who is like “a refiner’s fire, and like fuller’s soap”” (end book quote)
I agree with this claim of spiritual dyslexia because I used to have it, and maybe I still do. As I read through A-24 I recognize some of these things I have come to know for myself; I recognize the path that is being described. #8 got me. I think this is what I’ve been struggling with in my repentance process in feeling a self-perfectionism, and not recognizing that God’s plan is “humility and repentance… and not perfectionism or pride.” I think this requires me to have more faith in the atoning blood of Jesus Christ. I know it is real, I know He did it for me, personally and individually. But does His blood have the power to go deep enough to cover all my ugliness? Even as I write to reveal the weed and the lie, I know the truth. I know His power is greater than all my weakness. I’ve been trying so hard to repent!... without trusting His power to reach all the way down to the bottom of my pit. I’ve been trying to do it myself through perfectionism, instead of recognizing that I have to trust in the grace that I can after all I can do.
Then, of course, #9 reveals that we must “ask with sincerity of heart. I know I got that covered, or that at least I have done all I can do on that point.
