Love at home starts with becoming authentic indivi
Submitted by: John O. Andersen
Author: John O. Andersen
Date Sumbitted: Apr 21, 2000
The Invitation" by Oriah Mountain Dreamer, Indian Elder:
It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for, and if you dare to dream of meeting you heart’s longing.
It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool for love, for your dreams, for the adventure of being alive.
It doesn’t interest me what planets are squaring your moon. I want to know if you have touched the center of your own sorrow, if you have been opened by life’s betrayals or have become shriveled and closed from fear of further pain.
I want to know if you can sit with pain, mine or your own, without moving to hide it or fade it or fix it. I want to know if you can be with joy, mine or your own; if you can dance with wildness and let the ecstasy fill you to the tips of your fingers and toes without cautioning us to be careful, be realistic, or to remember the limitations of being human.
It doesn’t interest me if the story you are telling me is true, I want to know if you can disappoint another to be true to yourself. if you can bear the accusation of betrayal and not betray your own soul.
I want to know if you can be faithful and therefore trustworthy. I want to know if you can see beauty, even when it is not pretty every day, and if you can source your life from its presence.
I want to know if you can live with failure, yours or mine, and still stand on the edge of a lake and shout to the silver of the full moon, "Yes!"
It doesn’t interest me to know where you live or how much money you have. I want to know if you can get up after the night of grief and despair, weary and bruised to the bone, and do what needs to be done for the children.
It doesn’t interest me who you are, or how you came to be here-- I want to know if you will stand in the center of the fire with me and not shrink back.
It doesn’t’ interest me where or with whom you have studied. I want to know what sustains you from the inside when all else falls away. I want to know if you can be alone with yourself, and if you truly like the company you keep in the empty moments.
If we want to have love at home, to some degree, we must take off the masks which conceal our true selves and become authentic individuals. When we are authentic, we are more able to love, to empathize, and to lift others. However, when we hide behind the masks of stereotypical roles such as "rising executive", "super mom," "star athlete," or "prom queen," we may never discover our authentic selves and thus, may find it difficult to love meaningfully.
Our culture conditions us in powerful ways. For instance, too many have fallen for the notion that responsible parenting means giving children the fully accessorized "good life," and regular short blurbs of "quality time" since quantity time just isn’t available. Or some adults feel they can express love to their spouses by purchasing diamonds, dream homes, cars and cruises. We’ve more or less convinced ourselves that to show love, we need to buy something.
This commoditized love is a paltry counterfeit to the real thing and brings no lasting happiness. Most of us know this. And although we may agree with the sentiment of the popular 60s song that "money can’t buy me love," our behavior in the 90s indicates that many of us think it can. My mother taught me the importance of giving the gifts that can’t be purchased or wrapped--gifts of service, gifts of love. This wasn’t just a handy exercise for a family with five children living on a schoolteacher’s salary, but much more a lesson in proper values. As a child, I hated getting those type of gifts. They were no fun. But as an adult, I realize they are the only gifts which really matter, because they are closer to true expressions of love.
The Gospel teaches us to love in the proper way. This love involves sacrifice, and long-suffering. It demands debits from our heart, our time, and our life energy, not just our bank account. It can’t be satisfied with a mere purchase, but rather operates over a long period of time by the predictable "Law of the Harvest"-- "as ye sow, so shall ye reap." The Gospel also teaches us that charity or the love of Christ is the greatest of all gifts. This suggests to me that rather than obsessing about our personal effectiveness, we would be wise to turn our attention to helping others. Perhaps most of us would agree that the world has a greater need for friendly, caring, unhurried, and thoughtful people, than for more people to achieve the "lifestyles of the rich and famous."
Early in this century, Joseph F. Smith said that three evils would threaten the Latter Day Saints in the last days. These were: immorality, false educational ideas, and the praise of the world (Gospel Doctrine). What do you think he meant by "the praise of the world?" Could it have to do with an inordinate desire to break into the "Top 20" or to be number one, or to be known as a cool Dad because you shower your children with expensive toys? Are those the things with which we should occupy our thoughts or rather, should our attention be on "succor[ing] the weak, lift[ing] up the hands which hang down and strengthen[ing] the feeble knees?" D&C 81:5
I believe that love at home, in its broadest sense involves much more than squeezing "quality" time into an overly busy schedule or purchasing something. It has to do with parents being there for children for quantity time. It has to do with families working, playing and praying together. It has to do with the husband and wife truly sharing each other’s lives, not just time slots in a day planner.
The quest for authenticity can reveal surprising aspects of our personality. For instance, we learn to express not only our joys, but also our sorrows, our inadequacies, our fears, and even our anger. Through such expression, we discover the many sides of our personality, and thus become more authentic and better able to love.
In Primary, we learned that "if you chance to meet a frown, do not let it stay; quickly turn it upside down and smile that frown away." This is great advice for dealing with everyday life. But we mustn’t forget that a smile is not a cure-all. Sometimes we need to deal with unpleasant issues which won’t go away with just a smile. May I be so bold to suggest that we are both dishonest with ourselves and uncharitable to others if we simply blot out all things which are unpleasant and difficult to face? There is a place for frank and tactful honesty. When we close ourselves from anything which isn’t hunky-dory, we lose our ability to understand and empathize with others.
In a book entitled Only When I Laugh (Salt Lake City: Signature Books), the author, Elouise Bell explores the dark side of being nice, and keeping everything pleasant, when honesty and courage are called for. "The creed of niceness," she writes, "does damage to the Self, to the soul. The struggle for personal authenticity is a lifelong one, the true Hero Journey we all must take if life is to have meaning. And the demons with which we grapple in the underworld have many shapes. Some have names long memorialized in literature: Pride, Sloth, Envy, Avarice. Others are more pastel despots: Conformity, Busyness, and Niceness. How does Niceness threaten the hero on the journey? The quest is for the authentic Self to discover as many of the particulars as possible from an infinite number of particulars, and especially certain crucial particulars about that totally unique, eternally individual unceasingly changing Self....Niceness threatens by saying there is no True Self, or that the True Self is synonymous with the Natural Man (and thus an enemy to God), or that the False Self is what we ought to seek." (excerpt from "When Nice Ain’t So Nice," BYU Today, January 1991. pg. 3.)
In American Mormon culture, we sometimes choose Niceness over tactful truthfulness. Too many of us find it hard to say no. For instance, how often do we attend activities or meetings when our heart and conscience tell us that we really should be home with our wife or teenager? Perhaps we find it easier to spend time in the public realm "fixing our feathers" than to deal with intractable problems at home. Nevertheless, our conscience often stings with the words of David O. McKay, that "no success can compensate for failure in the home." Yet, when it comes down to it, can we muster the courage to say no to worthwhile activities in order to spend time doing the most important activities?
I’m grateful for the example of Lehi’s wife Sariah, in the Book of Mormon. She was a devoted wife and mother whose depth of love was enhanced by her courage and authenticity. Although some have criticized her for complaining against Lehi, by "telling him that he was a visionary man," and fearing that because of this, her sons were in danger of their lives (1 Ne. 5:4), I believe Sariah’s reaction was more that of a concerned mother whose heart was for the welfare of her sons. She was an authentic person, who rather than quietly submit to whatever her husband did, spoke out and let her feelings be known. Her courage and assertiveness ultimately led to a greater commitment to her husband’s prophetic role and perhaps made him more mindful of her needs and concerns. Had she not voiced her concerns and just pretended like everything was fine, would she have gained the same testimony of their important mission? Had she quietly bottled up her personal fears in order to support her husband in his calling, she may have kept the peace, but perhaps she would have done damage to her own soul, and to her personal authenticity.
It is my sincere desire that we might each follow the path toward authenticity; that we will have the courage to be who we really are even in the face of tremendous pressure to be nice and not "rock the boat." Because when we become our authentic selves we can better love others and enjoy deeper and more meaningful love at home.