Annual Christmas Eve Blog-Write

Years ago Melody started enforcing the new tradition of the Annual Christmas Eve Journal-Write. Whether or not any of us had written in our journals for days or even months, at least we would take the time to write at least a few pages at the end of the year. This is the first Christmas Eve I've spent at home by myself (meaning without any siblings), and it makes sense, since I'm the last single one, after Elise's wedding in May. And, while I was militant about keeping a daily journal as a missionary, I've done quite poorly since I returned. What I have done well, on the other hand, is blog regularly! So, I figured this year I would get with the times and update Melody's tradition for the 21st Century.

There have been a lot of festivities so far this year already, and I'm so glad I could be here for them. The last two Christmases have been really meaningful in their own ways, but I definitely missed spending time with the family and being a part of the events of which I saw many pictures and heard many stories. Tonight, contrary to usual traditions, Mom, Dad and I just stayed home and relaxed. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe was on ABC, and it turned out to be the perfect movie for Christmas Eve (it even has Father Christmas!). I hadn't seen this film in years, and remembered now what a brilliant movie and near-perfect adaptation of the source novel it is. Then, later tonight I went browsing the blogs of friends and family to see if there were any festive Christmas posts, and what I found were both good and bad. I found some inspiring posts on Christ and His birth and what it means for all of us, and I found some that were really confusing, not even to do with Christmas, but current political trends, and certain personal feelings toward certain political figures, and certain bewildering, circle-running ideologies that skew toward the world and away from Christ. It kind of took the wind out of my proverbial Christmas Eve sails, but gave me a lot to think about, and heaven knows that's not necessarily a bad thing. I've been silenced before I guess, but not usually when I calmly and politely outlined my thoughts, even in dissent. Then there's always the controversy of those who are so against religion and God and Christianity in general that they try to take away even the mere mention of Christmas (our country is dying of PC!), or at least acidly protest it in loud and intolerant ways. Why is it hip and trendy to be any religion but Christian? It's really curious and bothersome to me. Anyway, I don't really know what the point of this post is, except to say that I really am grateful for what I have, grateful for my faith and freedom to express it, and especially grateful that Christ was born so that He could die for us and ultimately redeem us, if we do our part. Agency is such a gift, but it's so misunderstood and misinterpreted in these times and I worry about our misuse of it. I am luckily not to be the judge of the souls of humankind (who would actually want to take that responsibility on themselves?...), but I also know that we are commanded by Christ to judge righteously, and judge from behavior, right from wrong. Hurrah for the Light of Christ, and the Spirit's guiding promptings!

To end, I guess I'll just post my favorite Nativity painting by an LDS artist (Walter Rane). There are a lot of LDS painters, and the Nativity has been treated by them all, most likely, but I like Rane's textures and colors and drama, and how it looks like I'm actually seeing a scene that really took place, rather than a fuzzy, golden-glowy, modern-Mormons-as-models painting.

Merry Christmas, everyone.

Let earth receive her king.

A Word or Two About Agency

Your Heavenly Father has given you agency, the ability to choose and to act for yourself. Agency is essential in the plan of salvation. Without it, you would not be able to learn or progress or follow the Savior. With it, you are “free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil”.

(Source)


You might be wondering why I put a picture of a jail cell under a blog title and quote about agency. This is for a couple reasons. First, I've been wanting to blog about agency for a while now, considering its relevance to the current political and cultural climate of our country. Also, for my Abnormal Psychology class tonight we took a field trip to the Utah County jail in Springville. We had a short spiel from Sgt. Wall (which felt like a string of scare tactics intended to warn troubled youth against bad and addictive behavior rather than a presentation to a group of college students who just finished studying the psychological causes and effects of substance-related disorders), a brief tour of the facilities (in which we weren't sure who were the caged animals and which were the zoo visitors, us or the inmates, the way they were ogling us) and concluded our visit with a short Q&A session with two young ladies who were serving their respective sentences for extreme and repeated possession, use and selling of various and numerous illegal substances (both of whom were younger than I am, and one of whom had been in and out of jail a total of 21 times... so far...).

So, with the presidential race, as well as issues such as Proposition 8, a lot of LDS people are using the concept of agency (which, as stated above, is our God-given freedom to choose between right and wrong, a gift given to man since the very beginning with Adam and Eve--indeed, according to Preach My Gospel, it's among the very first principles taught to those investigating the Church) in some sort of convoluted misunderstood reasoning against standing for their traditions and beliefs. Agency IS a good thing, and everyone has it, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't strive to stand for and yes, even enforce good things. Agency is sort of a double-edged sword, because we all love and want to be able to choose what we want to do, but at the same time there are always consequences, for good or bad. The poor girls at the jail tearfully expressed their regret for their poor decisions, but at the same time didn't seem to shift the responsibility or blame to anyone else (they indicated they were among the most sober of the other inmates, others might not be so quick to accept the blame). Now, a lot of people feel like enacting and supporting/promoting amendments and laws that protect a preferable way of life or align with your beliefs is in some way infringing on others' agency. This mindset seems completely off to me. According to that logic, why should we even have missionary work or strive to share our beloved beliefs with others? Why would God even give or enforce commandments and why would we have to suffer consequences? Couldn't that be considered an attempt at infringement on agency? Similarly, people feel that we should vote for so-and-so because said candidate believes in, say, abortion and gay marriage, since those are things people should be able to choose, and to vote otherwise would indicate that we DON'T want to allow choice. That is hardly the point. Laws and commandments that protect morality and enforce the right are NOT an infringement on agency. People are always free to choose whether or not to follow or adhere to a set of rules (be they laws, commandments, amendments, recommendations, or friendly suggestions), but we have to do what we can to promote the good while we still can.

I believe that God gave us agency. I also believe that He wants us to use our agency to further His work and share what we believe in any realm, be it social, cultural, political or spiritual. I don't believe efforts such as promoting Proposition 8 are taking away anyone's agency. Standing for truth and righteousness in any way helps us learn and progress and follow the Savior.

Incidentally, both of these tragic ladies (who the Sgt. feels will be back in jail once released, despite their adamant insistence that they were going to clean up for good) responded identically when asked what single word of advice they would give in five seconds to keep people away from making bad choices and ending up like they did:

Keep God in your life.