Is Charity (or Any Other Virtue) Really Worth The Fight?

I think with the battles for self-control and developing Christ-like attributes, it can be easy to forget what we are up against.

Sun Tzu wrote something that I think applies very well in these struggles of self that roughly translated goes like this:

"So it is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you can win a hundred battles without a single loss.
If you only know yourself, but not your opponent, you may win or may lose.
If you know neither yourself nor your enemy, you will always endanger yourself."

Who exactly are our enemies?  I think we can all agree that the first is the Adversary, and the second is given to us in Mosiah 3:19: "For the natural man is an enemy to God".

C.S. Lewis I think put it in a slightly different way in the preface to Screwtape Letters when he warned that it is equally dangerous to display either too much or too little interest in the Devil.  I think this can also apply to the dangers of having too much or too little interest in (i.e. "understanding of") the natural man.

Recently, I ran across a few resources online that expanded my understanding of the natural man, and gave me a little better idea of what we're up against in our quest to become like Christ.

"For The Default Man Is An Enemy To God..."

"[I]n the day-to-day trenches of adult life, there is actually no such thing as atheism. There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship--be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles--is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive...

Gratitude and Anti-Gratitude

I've been doing some more thinking today, and I think I've figured out a little more about the effect doubt/disbelief has on gratitude.

A few years back, I got my Amateur Radio Operator license.  One of the things that I learned about and have experienced in communicating over the air waves is the effect of interference and noise on the radio signal.  Noise is just something you have to learn how to deal with - there are many different types of sources from many different locations, and some days no matter how you may try to avoid it you just have to live with it.
Sometimes you can locate the source of the noise, sometimes you can find a location that isn't as effected by the noise, and when all else fails, crank the transmit power knob up to 11 and just wipe it out with excessive wattage.

I think doubt and disbelief are like noise and interference. They can block out and scramble the messages of the "still small voice", and are the opposite of the peace and stillness that we are seeking.  Like radio noise, there are some things that we can do to minimize the effect of the extraneous signals.  I think the most popular and most overused method is to overpower the noise with a stronger signal.

Mechanics of Gratitude

I've been thinking about gratitude a lot lately, specifically the "mechanics" of gratitude.

Elder Kevin Pearson gave a Gen Conf talk in April 2009 that went into the "mechanics" of faith that I think can be applied to gratitude:

"Faith and fear cannot coexist. One gives way to the other. The simple fact is we all need to constantly build faith and overcome sources of destructive disbelief. The Savior’s teaching comparing faith to a grain of mustard seed recognizes this reality (see Matthew 13:31–32). Consider it this way: our net usable faith is what we have left to exercise after we subtract our sources of doubt and disbelief. You might ask yourself this question: 'Is my own net faith positive or negative?' If your faith exceeds your doubt and disbelief, the answer is likely positive. If you allow doubt and disbelief to control you, the answer might be negative."

I think we can do something with gratitude to understand the factors that affect and limit our gratitude. I think it can be expressed in terms of an equation, like Elder Pearson laid out.

And then, the Conspiring Man behind the counter asked me, "Do you want fries with that?"...



"Do you want fries with that?..."

Doctrine & Covenants 89:4 - "Behold, verily, thus saith the Lord unto you: In consequence of evils and designs which do and will exist in the hearts of conspiring men in the last days, I have warned you, and forwarn you, by giving unto you this word of wisdom by revelation-" ...

Want to know just how deep and widespread the "evils and designs" are in the hearts of "conspiring men" out there in the American Fast Food and supporting industries today? Read this book. Now.

Fast Food Nation: The Dark Side of the All-American Meal by Eric Schlosser