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As we grow from childhood we all freely (but initially innocently) make the choice to hide ourselves from God and each other by hardening our hearts.
We betray ourselves by violating the law of love and choose to harden our hearts against God and others.
In so doing, we alienate ourselves from authentic existence and engage in numerous behaviors that injure our relationships with others.
We engage in a self-deceived way of being where we convince ourselves that remaining alienated will bring us the greatest happiness.
Blake Ostler
http://www.blakeostler.com/docs/AtonementInMormonThought.pdf
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COMMENT: This passage resonates strongly with my own experience: that as a child my heart was open and warm but at points throughout growing-up and adult life I felt a very strong temptation to close and harden my heart; and indeed made strenuous attempts to achieve this; and indeed for exactly the reason of believing that completing the process and remaining alienated would bring me the greatest happiness - because then I would be independent of circumstances. As this progressed, however, I became increasingly alienated from authentic existence and engaged in numerous behaviours that injured my relationship with others. From this I was, more than once, by good fortune and my failure to have completed the corruption, rescued - several times by a temporary stay, then by a potentially permanent re-birth.
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Any one who knows children knows that they aren't innocent of sin and wilfulness. What they are is susceptible to influence. This suggests that children are not not in need of grace but that they aren't resistant to it.
ReplyDeleteOne other thought:
ReplyDeleteBlogging--any kind of personal writing for the public really--even apologetics, perhaps, a la C.S. Lewis--is at least a touch self-absorbed. This might explain the instinctual aversion you feel to it and why Lewis always felt alienated from belief after engaging in apologetics.
This blog post is precisely right.
ReplyDelete"And said, Verily I say unto you, Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven." - Matthew 18:3
This matter of the heart is a big distinction on the political Right. Many on the Right, especially the secular Right, have hard and closed hearts - and pride themselves on the fact. But it won't do. On the other hand, Tolkien, Lewis, Fr Seraphim Rose, and it seems Blake Ostler and indeed many of the prominent Mormons- are tough realists, but they have warm and open hearts.
ReplyDelete