Sophrosune

There are some words that carry such a rich and nuanced meaning that it is virtually impossible to translate them adequately. When they are translated, meaning is inevitably lost. Some of the world’s great insights have been overlooked (and even lost) because of this unfortunate reality.

One such word is the Greek sophrosune. The dictionary indicates that it means: mental soundness, moderation, good sense and self-control. Its cognates also mean: sensible, sober, serious, discrete, prudent and chaste.

This is a lot for a word to mean. Try putting yourself in the situation of a translator who, upon finding sophrosune in a text, had to pick and choose among the many possible meanings. Such a task becomes exasperatingly futile when one realizes that the author did not have in mind just one of these definitions. When ancient authors used sophrosune they most certainly had in mind more than one. In some cases they may have intended all of them.

Take for example Paul’s use of the word in the Pastoral Epistles to Timothy and Titus. These letters were written towards the end of Paul’s life, after he had spent a good amount of time away from Judea. I expect that his time away included a more thorough understanding of both the Greek and Latin languages. Perhaps he had learned to appreciate the significance of the word sophrosune to a greater degree than he had before. It certainly shows up in his later writings more frequently than in his earlier work.

For example, in his letter to Titus (first chapter and eighth verse) Paul says that a bishop must be a “lover of hospitality, a lover of good men, sober, just, holy, temperate”. This is the King James translation, which translates sophrona as “sober”. The New International Version translates the verse such that a bishop must be “hospitable, one who loves what is good, who is self-controlled, upright, holy and disciplined.” Here the translated word is “self-controlled.” The Revised Standard Version indicates that a bishop must be “hospitable, a lover of goodness, master of himself, upright, holy, and self-controlled.” Here it is translated as “master of himself.”

These translations do the best they can but there is obviously a real loss here. Of course a bishop should be a sober man, but this hardly describes everything Paul meant to say. In this loss of understanding, we have also lost sight of the kind of person that such a word implies. For sophrosune describes a person of great character. It describes a person that has control of his/her inner life.

This kind of self-mastery is at the heart of the Christian message. David O. McKay said that “An upright character is the result only of continued effort and right thinking, the effect of long-cherished associations with Godlike thoughts. He approaches nearest the Christ spirit who makes God the center of his thoughts; and he who can say in his heart, “Not my will, but thine be done” approaches most nearly the Christ ideal.”

For Saint Augustine there was a great difference between those with this inner control and those without it. “For as the same fire causes gold to glow brightly, and chaff to smoke; and under the same flail the straw is beaten small, while the grain is cleansed… so the same violence of affliction proves, purges, clarifies the good, but damns, ruins, exterminates the wicked.”

Sophrosune was understood as the antithesis of hubris – that sin of selfish and destructive pride that afflicted many of the ancient world; and sadly, perfectly describes all too many of our own. And I think it is significant that we have retained the word hubris, while forgetting sophrosune. It is human nature to bristle at the arrogant upstart that we recognize in hubris. But we seem to find it altogether inconvenient to gain the mastery of our inner selves that sophrosune requires of us.

And why should we? Nobody seems to care anyway. Not too many generations ago, our ancestors learned about Washington and Lincoln not only as American presidents but as men who had cultivated a noble character. Today they are only considered historical figures. Instead of reading their staid and inspiring words, we learn only of the role they played in the formative events of our country. The strength of their inner selves is never considered.

Our youth grow up wondering what great things they might achieve in their lives, focusing on careers, wealth, beauty and influence. Their heroes are persons that have achieved some level of outer visibility and excellence. We look almost in vain to find the hero that inspires us with inner excellence.

No other writer in modern times has focused more meaningfully on this problem than has Irving Babbitt. He did not use the word sophrosune (I’m not sure if he knew Greek) but it is the major theme of his life’s work. He found it to be a major theme of the Judeo-Christian heritage as well as other Eastern religions and philosophies. He also saw its eclipse starting with Rousseau and Romanticism and growing in our modern world into our love of democratic superficiality.

Recognizing the lack of character in our modern academics, he paraphrases Emerson and Goethe approvingly: “The intellect is fatal to earnestness, says Emerson; Goethe has said it still more wisely that everything that emancipates the intellect without giving us a corresponding self-mastery is pernicious.”

And in his essay on Matthew Arnold he criticizes the inability of our democracy to ennoble anybody. “A glance at a current display of our newspapers and popular magazines suggests that, though we are not fools, we are reading just the things that fools would read.”

Yet for all the insight of Babbitt’s diagnosis – and it often seems right on the mark – he refrains from describing in any detail how this inner check might be developed. He talks about it as though it were self-evident. But it isn’t. Self-mastery, after all, is not only unpopular it is hard to develop. It isn’t something that is rationally acquired or decided upon and then experienced the next day. There is an element of uncertainty involved and it takes time. It requires directing one’s life according to principles that are not always well defined. In a word, it requires faith.

Hugh B. Brown said that “Man cannot live without faith, because in life’s adventure the central problem is character-building – which is not a product of logic, but of faith in ideals and sacrificial devotion to them.”

This is a very important insight – this relationship between character and faith. In fact I cannot think of another time in the history of the world when it takes so much faith to develop self-mastery. There are virtually no societal rewards anymore to someone deciding to gain mastery over their lives. It is a quiet quest of anonymity.

But there has never been a time in the history of the world when it was more needed. David O. McKay once made the contrast between two inebriated men. The first man lived over a hundred years ago and the worst that came of his condition was that he might have run his horse or chariot off the road into a ditch. The second man today may end up rolling his car off of the highway. If he is lucky he will only end up in the hospital form a short period. If less lucky he might lose his life or the lives of others.

In important personal ways there really isn’t much difference between these two men other than the technologies they use and the times in which they live. And yet the differences are very real indeed.

Or consider the inclination to view pornography. A century ago someone with a strong inclination might live his life and never suffer because of this weakness. Because a century ago there weren’t many opportunities to indulge in the practice. Today, though, things are very different. A man with only a slight inclination can end up hurting himself and his family a great deal. He may even be the cause of breaking up his home, or worse. And all of this because of the technology that makes it so easy to get caught up in it all.

Our times are not times to be morally indifferent. We really can’t afford to be. Yet sadly these very same times see so many of us so little interested in being masters of our inner selves. It used to be that a business owner in a small town might establish his character and benefit from it financially. A researcher might insist on high standards and be recognized for it. An athlete might be more concerned about sportsmanship than about winning a game. But these virtues are becoming rarer all the time. And sophrosune has little chance of making a comeback in such a cultural mess. Our democracy has given us all the chance to excel but instead of taking advantage of this opportunity most of us have merely become numbed into apathy. Character to us is something possessed by a novel or an abrasive personality – a character. Moral strength has nothing to do with it.

The small chance that true character has left is if visionary men and women, with enough faith in higher standards, will live a life of unrecognized nobility in order to become a person that few will ever understand. It will require them to rise above our culture and live with an eternal perspective because in our world, sophrosune requires faith.

References

For the David O. McKay quote see Teachings of the Presidents of the Church, David O. McKay, pg. 218. His example of the two drunk men are on page 160 of his recent biography (by G. Prince and R. Wright) David O. McKay and the Rise of Modern Mormonism. Augustine’s quote is from The City of God, Book I, Chapter 8. Two of Babbitt’s most important books on the inner check are Democracy and Leadership and Character and Culture. The reference to Goethe is in his essay Are the English Critical in Character and Culture. Hugh B. Brown’s statement is from a talk given by Richard G. Scott in the October, 2010 General Conference, The Transforming Power of Faith and Character.

An Everlasting Dominion

Five days ago I sat in the Salt Lake Temple (in downtown Salt Lake City) and watched, in the official capacity of a witness, as my son was married to a remarkable young lady. The ceremony was simple but the profound promises and the sense of eternal significance perfused the whole event. Mothers, fathers, and many others wept. Even brothers sniffled. The bride and groom were overcome by it all. And as I sat just a few feet from the altar trying to control my own emotions, I began to sense an importance of the event that I could not readily place my finger on.

I was (and continue to be) very well aware of the binding nature of temple covenants. But this was the first time in my life that I began to catch a glimpse, at a deeper personal level, of something more. Over the next few days I came to appreciate that I was sensing the expansion of my dominion.

This may sound a bit egotistical. Dominion, after all, is a word that we normally associate with power and wealth. I was not experiencing these things in the least. (Quite the contrary, in fact, as I was in one sense losing an immediate member of the household, and it was costing me quite a bit of money!) But then the inspiring passages in the 121st Section of the Doctrine and Covenants came into my mind:

“Let thy bowels also be full of charity towards all men, and to the household of faith, and let virtue garnish thy thoughts unceasingly; then shall thy confidence wax strong in the presence of God; and the doctrine of the priesthood shall distil upon thy soul as the dews from heaven. The Holy Ghost shall be thy constant companion, and thy scepter an unchanging scepter of righteousness and truth; and thy dominion shall be an everlasting dominion, and without compulsory means it shall flow unto thee forever and ever.” (The italics are mine.)

Now the first definition of the Oxford English Dictionary under dominion refers to a piece of land, a domain. A king’s dominion included the territory he ruled. It also meant the things that occupied that land, often including the possessions of people and even individual persons themselves.

But at its root, dominion refers to something that seems much simpler and more humble. It refers to a household, the Latin domus. And it is this meaning that worked its way into my understanding and clarified my joy. My household was growing, and I had (and still have) all the confidence in the world that the two lovely young people in front of me would be instruments in that expansion. They were part of my eternal dominion and I couldn’t help but love them for that.

Now what stands out so obviously to me about this scriptural dominion is its basis in individual agency. There is no element here of tyrannical rule or of an enforced sovereignty. This is a dominion that comes without “compulsory means”.

Now I am no legal scholar but as I understand real estate agreements, our land is owned and ultimately protected by compulsion, or at least the threat of compulsion. If I trespass on someone’s land, or fail to make payments on my own, I can be compelled to make recompense or face punishment.

On the other hand, everlasting dominion (in its scriptural sense) is not based on this use of force. It comes on its own. Or maybe it would be better to say that it comes as a natural (even inevitable) part of living virtuously and charitably.

This was all a surprise to me. I have often been saddened by my lack of an immediate inheritance of land. My brother and sisters all live in the same town I grew up in. I am the only member of the family that has moved around a great deal. And I have often longed for a place – transcending generations – of fruitful land that would partly define me and my descendants. This is the kind of dominion I have often thought about. I still do, in fact.

But I learned something new last Tuesday that I wasn’t expecting, when I entered the temple. You see I have attended other wedding ceremonies – wonderful ceremonies. They reminded me of my own marriage and of the wonderful woman that is my own eternal companion. But this was the first time I really sensed the bigger picture. I became more than just a husband and father. Or maybe I should say that I sensed more truly what it means to be an eternal husband and father. It isn’t something that I can easily put into words.

After all the promise accompanying this dominion is that it comes with the companionship of the Holy Ghost. It truly is something that must be experienced in order to appreciate. It is part of gaining an eternal perspective.

Maybe at some time in the future these two kinds of dominion will dovetail into a fuller eternal dominion full of family, faith and landscape. In the meantime I think I’ll just enjoy this part of getting older, and watch my family grow.

Royalty (for Kathy)

Two lessons in a lilac bush
One just for sunny days
The other for an afternoon
Left dripping from the rain

A gentle blush upon your cheek
Is honey to the bee
But there is more than nectar in
The other part I see

Although it seems unusual
That lavender in sun
Can change the color of its robe
And wear a purple one

Believing Thomas

Consider a young man in school who has spent long hours preparing for a final exam. It is an important exam. If he does well he can expect to receive a hefty scholarship. If he does poorly he may not get the educational experience he really wants. On the evening following the test he has a sudden misgiving about the last big essay question and fears that he misread it. Several days pass - each one filled with anxiety. When he finally gets the score he is greatly relieved. His teacher gave him high marks.

Now consider a woman who has just met an attractive man and wants to get to know him better. He appears to be a responsible and capable person but as she gets to know him she begins to have doubts. Some of the things he does aren’t consistent with the things he says. Eventually she learns that he is often dishonest and not morally trustworthy.

Both of these examples deal with doubt. In the case of the student, the doubt was misplaced. In the case of the dating woman it was not. Now let me give another example that is meant to contrast to these two.

Suppose a young man, raised in a caring home, comes of age and begins spending time with a crowd of delinquent youth. They poison his thinking about the way he was raised. After a time he begins fighting with his parents over simple family rules. He says he doesn’t believe them anymore. After several weeks of this he moves away from home and eventually ends up in jail.

In this story we notice the rebellion of the young man first and only secondly do we see his doubt. In fact doubt may not even be an issue, it’s hard to say for sure. Yet as vague as this may seem it is more the scriptural sense of doubt than the first two examples.

This kind of doubt, as a disbelief and a turning away from truth, is the kind of doubt that has serious spiritual consequences. The doubts of the young student and the dating woman are different. They are part of a healthy human approach to the world. They represent a kind of doubt that makes us credible instead of credulous. Yet sadly we often fail to appreciate these different kinds of doubt. Even worse, we sometimes confuse a virtue for a weakness. When we do this we limit our own personal growth and understanding.

The story of Thomas the disciple of Christ is the saddest example of this that I know. His universally recognized nickname “Doubting Thomas” is one of history’s least merited attributions. It is true that he was uncertain about the risen Lord (see Luke 24) but there was never any rebellion involved and he never turned away from the truth. In fact, what we know of Thomas is the opposite of this.

At a time when Jesus’ popularity had grown to a degree that He was in mortal danger from the rulers of Jerusalem, Thomas was willing to give his life for the Master. Jesus had learned of Lazarus’s recent death and told His disciples that He would need to return to Judea, were recently he had nearly been stoned to death. Thomas, upon learning of Jesus’ dangerous trip said to the other disciples, “Let us also go that we may die with him” (John 11).

I don’t mean to imply that Thomas didn’t have doubts (meaning that he was uncertain) about the miracle of Christ’s resurrection. He did. What I want to show is that the kind of doubt he experienced is not necessarily an evil thing. It can be overcome with faithful effort. Many great men and women of faith experience much more doubt than did Thomas and yet we never think to accuse them of lacking faith.

Peter, for example, after walking briefly on the sea became troubled upon seeing the wind and the waves and sank. Jesus asked him why he doubted. Yet we don’t hold this against Peter. In fact we are amazed at the faith he must have had to walk the few steps he did take. Is Thomas’s doubt so much greater than Peter’s? I doubt it.

In a world of so many competing doctrines and philosophies - some that are clearly wrong and even harmful - we do well to be guarded about many of the claims of others. It serves us well to doubt - that is to acknowledge our uncertainty. And yet the command of Christ is to “doubt not.”

Perhaps there seems to be a contradiction. We are endowed with the tendency to doubt and then commanded not to. This is the same sort of thing we face with selfishness. It clearly helps us to survive, and yet spiritual growth requires that we overcome it (at least some of it). Some aspects of selfishness, like pulling your hand away from a hot stove or coming inside from a storm, are never considered spiritually bad. The selfishness that harms another or tarnishes our spirits, is.

Similarly, doubts about used cars will serve us well throughout our lives. Doubts about saving truths can harm us a great deal. Yet given these obvious differences, religious doubt has been seen to be a universal evil in ways that it shouldn’t have.

According to traditional Christian doctrine, religious truths are to be accepted on authority. Very often this leaves little room for anything between acceptance of a truth and its outright rejection. Similarly Latter-day Saints have often been taught that religious doubt is generally an evil thing (even of the devil). And while this is expected to refer to the doubt that rejects saving truths, other distinctions are often overlooked.

In contrast to this dubious absolutism, the prophet Alma (in Chapter 32 of the Book of Alma in The Book of Mormon) taught about experimenting on the words of life, growing from truth to truth. Then as we grow in our understanding and experience with truth we are lead to other truths and in the process come face to face with other unknown propositions. We then are faced with the option, yet again, of either faith or doubt. It seems that while struggling here in mortality we will ever be experimenting this way, and growing.

And yet it is possible to remove doubt, at least in part, if we find Someone who is completely trustworthy. And as we gain experience with this Someone, our doubt - even of things that seem miraculous - will disappear. Clearly this is a lifelong process even for the spiritually great souls among us - great souls such as Thomas.

Perhaps I am being a little bold in giving Thomas so much credit. But let me point out one of the greatest scriptural chapters we have about doubt, in the 9th chapter of Mormon (in The Book of Mormon). Here Moroni pleads with his readers repeatedly to believe in Christ, doubting nothing. Such an immense belief really makes no sense if all we understood by belief is a simple mental agreement. Such a belief is little more than gullibility.

The immense belief described by Moroni is the kind of belief our ancestors meant by the word be-love. Only a few centuries ago these two words (be-lief and be-love) were used interchangeably. Our misunderstanding of this earlier scriptural sense has led many to think that all we need to do in order to gain salvation is to acknowledge the reality of Christ, regardless of the behavior of our lives. This is a mistake. The scriptural significance of be-lief implies a life-directing commitment to the One that we love above all else.

A belief in Christ that comes from the center of our being, from experience with the divine, is a kind of belief that truly does eliminate doubt. And when we grow towards this kind of belief - this kind of experience with truth - to the point that we love its author enough, we approach the point where doubt no longer exists, and our faith in Him is complete.

I believe that Thomas was well along this path. We know he loved Jesus and was willing to experiment further with His truth - even traveling to the ends of the earth to teach it. I expect that his doubt was much less than ours is. We need to judge him less severely. Thomas was a believer.

References

The Catholic Encyclopedia under doubt gives a detailed evaluation of the word’s meaning from a religious and historical perspective. The Mormon reference to doubt in Bruce R. McConkie’s Mormon Doctrine, though not official church doctrine (despite the title), is somewhat ambiguous in its reference to doubt being of the devil. For an important discussion of be-lief and be-love see Wilfred Cantwell Smith’s Faith and Belief.

Revelation and the Sense of Awe

Revelation is a basic principle of many religions. It is generally understood to be some kind of communication between God and man. In some traditions a sacred book is the primary form of this communication. In others it might be a mystical experience or a dream. Still others rely on holy men and women to interpret the portents of nature. In short, there are numerous ways that we understand revelation.

That said, one aspect of revelation that often gets overlooked is the experience of awe. This may sound like a strange juxtaposition – revelation and awe – but in some traditions they are pretty much the same thing. Or maybe more accurately: awe is the expected form (or an expected experience) of divine communication.

For many of us, in contrast, revelation comes with a rational handle that we can mull over and try to understand logically. Perhaps the original divine communication was a mystical experience - like Moses on Mount Sinai or Abraham before the altar - but the transmission of these experiences has become codified in a way that may require no sense of the divine presence at all.

Sadly this is becoming less and less apparent. In a time when the word revelation is being used more and more commonly, the experience of awe is getting overlooked and even forgotten. When this happens we run the risk of misunderstanding a very significant part of revelation: the actuality of being in the presence of the Divine.

I don’t mean to downplay the informational content of revelation. After all one can make the argument that it is the informational content that justifies the revelation in the first place. The Ten Commandments, for example, have held significance across millennia and in the lives of billions of people. Certainly this has been more important than the awe-inspiring moments on Sinai, experienced by one man, when the words were first received.

But let me ask a more difficult question. How valuable would those ten commandments be if nobody took the existence or the power of God seriously? Remember that Moses’s experience of God’s presence was not a trivial thing - not just an inspired thought or a clarifying insight. After removing his shoes and seeing in vision the immensity of God’s Creation he was left with the stunning realization that “man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed” (Moses 1:10).

One might argue that this experience of revelatory awe is of little significance today. Such experiences were for prophets who lived and wrote in the past. Maybe we can occasionally wonder at the marvels of creation - perhaps being in awe of pounding surf or the strength of a summer storm. But this is not the same. Our world is different we say.

This is where I disagree. If we have lost this wonder - this Biblical “fear of the Lord” - it can only be because we have failed to approach Him in a credible way or with an understanding of His handiwork.

The most obvious example of this myopia is our modern view of the Creation, and our disregard for the myths of other more “primitive” cultures. Anthropologists have accumulated a vast literature - now over a century old and building - of these stories relating how divine beings exist in or somehow manipulate the forces of nature for their own ends. Sometimes humans themselves persuaded divine beings to affect natural changes on their behalf. James Frazer’s The Golden Bough is full of these kinds of examples.

One taken almost at random is of the Waganda of Central Africa that believed in a lake deity that would take up his abode in a man or a woman and change the weather. In other cultures the sun is revered as a deity and at times fires are highly regarded as charms from the sun. The Yakut, Omaha and other peoples believed that they could influence the spirits that cause the wind to blow. In the Hebrides (on the altar of Fladda’s Chapel, on the island of Fladdahuan) a moist black stone was used to summon favorable winds. And of course there are numerous examples of rain dances from culture around the world, as well as examples of ways to make the sun shine. Year-end rites are similarly ubiquitous as formal ways to start the cycles of life anew.

One of the most awe-inspiring rituals that I know of from earlier times was the Incan transport of purified victims (if I may use that term) to the top of mountains for sacrifice. These rituals were solemn events conducted amid the perennial snow and lightning storms of the highest peaks in the Americas.

Yet we tend to smile knowingly and roll our eyes at such stories, glad to be so much more enlightened than people who believe (or have believed) them. It would probably surprise many of us if we knew just how recently our own ancestors believed such things. It was only yesterday, for example, that crop-destroying weather was seen as a punishment from God. And the rainbow, so easily understood today in Newtonian terms, was for thousands of years a sign of God’s promises. When we insist on seeing the world only through the single-lens optics of science, we miss most of the beauty in the world and a great deal of awe-inspiring revelation.

It seems strange to us today that so many Victorians were fascinated with natural history. On weekends - especially on the Sabbath - the English countryside was filled with formally-clothed ladies and gentlemen out looking for natural objects of interest. Some collected shells or other marine remnants that had been washed ashore. Others gathered ferns or pressed flowers. Many people put up easels and painted landscapes or birds. Still others became experts in aquariums or terrariums - collecting fish, beetles, or other creatures that captured their imaginations. Interest in the natural order was many times greater than it is today.

The reason for this interest is a little surprising to us today at a time when natural history is primarily taught on televised programs and in museums, and capture only a fraction of its former audience. During the Heyday of Natural History Victorians believed they could better understand the Creator if they went outside and studied the Creation. Millions of them did so. This was a time when a clergyman could be a recognized authority on nature just as easily (and more likely) than anybody else. There are historians that find it odd that Darwin (the epitome of Victorian science) could have contemplated wearing the “cloth” as a youth. But such were the times, and Darwin’s interest was typical, not unusual, for his time.

That this natural history was meant to inspire awe is readily seen in much of the period’s poetry and painting. For example, William Wordsworth (a Romantic and a Victorian) in On Her First Ascent of Helvellyn wrote of the third highest peak in the UK:

Inmate of a mountain dwelling
Thou hast clomb aloft, and gazed
From the watch-towers of Helvellyn
Awed, delighted, and amazed ….

In America, The Hudson River School of landscape painting was also inspired by Romantic artists though prominent during the late 19th Century. Most of these works are depictions of majestic nature scenes. My favorites were painted by Albert Bierstadt, especially his Sunrise, Yosemite Valley and Sunset in the Yosemite Valley.

But times change. The fascination with nature began to wane, and it is tempting to see this as just part of history’s ineluctable march. Europe was changing as was America and people had to adapt. But in at least one way this change was different. It came with a diminishing of the sense of divine awe. It’s true that the Heyday of Natural History occurred in a particular place at a particular time and can be roughly discerned as an historic period. But the habit of finding God in the manifestations of nature was always a part of human nature. It is only recently that we have wrung the divine out of the natural world. Is it any wonder that we are suffering so many ecological maladies as a consequence?

And yet if the toll has been great ecologically, what has been the spiritual cost? Are we expected to find spiritual satisfaction alone in texts? Is it right that we leave all discussion of nature to vivisectionists?

Medieval Catholics built immense cathedrals to lift the eyes and the minds of worshippers to God to inspire awe. Today most Catholics have little access to these historic remnants. Modern places of worship are often little more than meeting houses. In Europe most of these impressive churches have been converted to museums with fancy alarm systems and barred windows. Burglars are effectively kept out. Unfortunately so is Christ.

Latter-day Saints, by contrast, have never attempted to create buildings as magnificent as Notre Dame in Paris or the Dom in Cologne. Early buildings were often tasteful testaments of faith but the Mormon architectural preference (even in most temples) is for functionality. I know that there will be those who disagree with this, feeling that temples are beautiful structures (and I agree that they are). But Mormon buildings are really not created to inspire awe.

And in fact buildings were not the first place early Christians went to be elevated spiritually. Christ Himself went often to the wilderness – even into the mountains.

Latter-day Saint scriptures give other examples of finding God in nature. To the unbelieving Korihor, the prophet Alma (in The Book of Mormon) testified that the earth and all living things, as well as the planets and the laws that govern their regular form “do witness that there is a supreme creator” (see Alma 30:44).

Enoch (as recorded in The Pearl of Great Price) upon seeing a vision of God and His tears falling as rain upon the mountains was filled with wonder that such a being could weep. And as he looked upon the wickedness of man he “wept and stretched forth his arms, and his heart swelled wide as eternity; and his bowels yearned; and all eternity shook” (see Moses 7:28-41).

Again in The Book of Mormon (as recorded in the 9th chapter of 3 Nephi) following the many devastating events at the time of Christ’s crucifixion, the voice of the Lord was heard declaring that He had been the cause of the many natural disasters that had recently occurred. He had caused great fires. He had caused cities to be swallowed up by the sea. The cities of Gadiandi, Gadiomnah, Jacob and Gimgimno He “caused to be sunk, and made hills and valleys in the place thereof.”

This is a part of our Christian faith that gets conveniently forgotten – primarily because it doesn’t easily fit into our modern understanding of the natural world. It needs to be considered more seriously. When we lose sight of the majesty of the Creator in His Creation we are left with the second-hand interpretations of fallible men to guide us. And this is hardly a recipe for spiritual understanding.

That awe was a very real and important part of the faith of our ancestors is certain. Perhaps they were more simple-minded than we are. So be it. This hardly serves as a justification for letting reason rob us of our need to find God, as if only the simple might have faith.

In fact many of our wisest thinkers have never lost their sense of wonder in spite of their grounding in science. Galileo, Newton, Einstein were filled with wonder. A more recent example is Loren Eiseley who was willing to grapple with the mysterious universe even while holding prestigious professorships in Anthropology and the History of Science at the University of Pennsylvania.

His description of the surgical precision of a wasp that provisions its nest with cicadas is compelling. The insect prey is carefully paralyzed and buried in such a way that seems to transcend the possibility of its development by means of natural selection. Yet Eiseley concedes:

“I am an evolutionist”. but there seems to be “Nothing to explain the necessity of life, nothing to explain the hunger of the elements to become life, nothing to explain why the stolid realm of rock and roil and mineral should diversify itself into beauty, terror, and uncertainty.”

Why are we so hesitant to acknowledge the divine majesty of the unknown? Why is the word awful (literally, being filled with awe) used so negatively most of the time when it can mean great as well as terrible? Why have we forgotten that the powerful sense of awe can be a revelatory experience?

I don’t profess to have all the answers. But I do believe that a big part of the blame lies with our inability to negotiate the world of sophisticated technical knowledge with the divine reality of our true nature.

Irving Babbitt noticed this many years ago when he pointed out the natural tendency of wonder to lead to awe, if the beholder only seeks for a broad and meaningful understanding. “As a man grows religious, awe comes more and more to take the place in him of wonder.”

Babbitt then proceeds to show, however, that wonder does not always lead to a religious awe. In fact the beginning of the modern world contains many examples of the harm that can come from an apotheosis of wonder by itself, without God. For as Samuel Johnson pointed out wonder is merely the effect of novelty upon ignorance. And in a time such as ours with so many discoveries claiming our attention, one can’t help but be confronted with wonder - even on a regular basis.

But there is a big difference between this quotidian wonder and a profound encounter with the Divine. If our searching in the world of nature only surprises us with novelty even as it cures us of our physical ailments we will only manage to prolong our lives even as the spiritual vacuum that fills our lives remains intact.

The world and the cosmos are so much more than just interesting things - in spite of our many clever discoveries. They are not just items to wonder about. They are majestic, unfathomable and awful. They are also the workmanship, and home, of God. And they should help us get to know Him better.

References:

My copy of The Golden Bough is a 1981 reprint from Avenal Books, New York. See Johan Reinhardt’s The Ice Maiden (National Geographic) for an adventurer’s account of the Inca mummies. The Hudson River School, American Landscape Artists by Bert Yaeger (Smithmark) has the Bierstadt paintings I mention. On Latter-day Saint architectural history see People of Paradox by Terry Givens (Oxford University Press). For Babbitt’s discussion on wonder and awe, see Chapter II in Rousseau & Romanticism (Transaction Publishers). My Eiseley quote is taken from Chapter 23, The Coming of the Giant Wasps, in All the Strange Hours, the Excavation of a Life (Scribners).

Onion Thrips Don't Like Mulch

Onion thrips don't like mulch. I know this because of a little experiment I conducted just recently. You see I live in an area of California were onions are regularly stripped of their chlorophyl by this little creature (that is smaller than an aphid and quite thin) and a lot of money is spent every year trying to keep it under control. So late last year as I was considering this sad state of affairs, I thought of a solution that might just be helpful to small farmers.

The whole idea centers around the fact that part of the thrips' life cycle is exposed and might be vulnerable to predators. In both the nymph and adult stages, thrips are fairly well protected deep within the closely spaced onion leaves where it is difficult for any kind or predator to go. Occasionally a small pirate bug manages to find a thrips (yes the singular of thrips is also thrips in case you were wondering) but for the most part, the thrips are able to freely feed on the onions without being molested.

One stage, however, is not so hidden. It is the pupal stage. When the nymphs have eaten and grown about all they can, they leave the protection of the leaves and drop to the soil where they change into an adult. In most agricultural situations, the thrips can find a small crack in the ground to hide without being bothered. If, however, an environment could be created (say a mulch covering of sorts) to bring in more predators, the thrips population might be reduced. The predators could eat the pupae and break the thrips life cycle.

With that thought in mind, I found a nice section of young onions last fall and built a bit of compost around a few dozen plants. It consisted of only a long board with a bit of grass clippings beneath - not much - but it was what I had available. I anchored these boards around the onions using thin wood stakes and left the plants pretty much alone. I kept the mulched onions and a couple of rows of adjacent (un-mulched) onions fairly free of weeds and adequately watered through the winter and spring. Then last week I decided to go out and see what the thrips populations were like.

What I found was what I had expected. The onions growing by the mulch had on average about 2 thrips per plant. The plants growing without a mulch had on average about 13 thrips per plant. As this was not a completely randomized and replicated trial I didn't run a statistical evaluation but I expect that the differences were real (the numbers were pretty tight). Somebody with more land and more time might want to do a more complete study but I think my hunch will bear itself out: thrips don't do as well when mulches are present because more predators exist to break their life cycle.

And in fact I took a look under my improvised mulch (the boards) and discovered several predators. There were small ground beetles and a couple of species of rove beetles. I don't know if they actually ate any of the thrips pupae (I didn't make any observations) but I suspect that some of them did.

Of course a conventional farmer, with acres of onions, will not have the wherewithal to mulch everything. They will need to continue using conventional methods to control the thrips. But there are better ways for the small farmer. Grass or stones might work well, as might other kinds of mulch. Try some out and let me know what you find. Your onions will be happy you did.

Intellectual Rhetoric and The Way of Ignorance

Over the past couple of years, I have watched a colleague of mine (I‘ll call her Lisa) first alienate herself from her peers and then received a sadly deserved demotion. She is a bright and friendly scientist holding both a Ph.D. (in the biological sciences) and an MBA. These credentials have served her well in many ways - helping her move up the corporate ladder - but ultimately they have not been able to save her from these recent embarrassments. One of her major stumbling blocks has been the failure to recognize the dangers of intellectual gamesmanship.

Lisa loves a good conversation and is witty. She grasps the meaning of arguments readily and loves to discuss hypothetical solutions to existing problems. She is able to quickly find her way to the limits of known solutions and then propose a course of action that makes intuitive sense. She is a valuable innovator because of this. Lisa is also competitive and, although this is often valuable, in certain circumstances it is a real handicap.

You see Lisa savors verbal victories - to have her solutions carry the day. Unfortunately her hypothetical solutions are sometimes wrong. In fact, in hindsight, it is easy to see that most of her solutions have been at least partially wrong. Over time these errors have accumulated and Lisa has lost credibility. She can still be convincing but she is no longer trusted or taken seriously. She has learned to excel at what I will call the art of intellectual rhetoric, but has failed to show sound judgment. Unfortunately this combination has cost her (and those who work with her) dearly.

Now I realize that scientific arguments are not normally categorized as rhetorical. Scientists, after all, are expected to follow where the data lead them, not to be convincing advocates of any particular cause. In a word, scientists are expected to follow dialectical methods, not rhetorical ones. The two approaches are quite distinct. And yet I choose the phrase intellectual rhetoric in spite of its apparent contradiction because I fear that it is no longer just an anomaly. More and more intelligent people are fitting its description.

In some ways the phrase may seem redundant. Thomas Sowell’s recent book Intellectuals and Society, for example, understands intellectuals to be primarily those talented social scientists that lack an adequate grounding for their proposed reforms. Unlike the data generated by the hard sciences that can be empirically tested, many social scientists propose striking social changes based on studies that cannot be confirmed in the real world. Advocates that fall in to Sowell’s categories certainly fit the description of intellectual rhetoricians.

There are others like Lisa, however, that are not social scientists per se but who are beginning to trouble our society using the same methods. Everywhere we turn there are new “experts” advocating changes that sound appropriate, using assumptions that are expected to be universally true. Biologists, for example, are now telling us that human evolution has fooled us in to believing that families are necessary, that giving to others is an ennobling thing, that God is real. These arguments become quite convenient in the hands of passionate and persuasive intellects seeking change - and all in the name of an unbiased scientific inevitability. We would be wise to use caution when confronted with these convincing “experts“. Many, if not most, of their arguments contain flaws. We may not know what they are right now, but they exist nonetheless. And like Lisa’s many mistakes, they will end up costing us dearly.

Ironically the most reasonable path to pursue given such uncertainty is to follow what Wendell Berry has called The Way of Ignorance. Berry’s title can be a little misleading. He is not suggesting that we intentionally make uninformed decisions. On the contrary, we should inform ourselves as best we can, especially if our decisions are momentous ones. What Berry means by The Way of Ignorance is that we need to act with the awareness that even our best knowledge is probably not perfect - that even with the best data and with the best intentions, we may still be wrong, at least in part.

A few hundred years ago many believed that the sun revolved around the earth. They were wrong. Less than a century ago the brightest minds in Germany (basing their ideas on evolutionary theory) believed that “ethnic cleansing” was justifiable. They were wrong too. Half a century ago many biologists believed that complex biological information develops (and has developed) by chance. They are also most certainly wrong.

Yet it is not the fact of being wrong that is the problem. Most of us are at least partially wrong on our thinking much of the time. It is when we refuse to acknowledge our limitations and arrogantly insist that we are completely right that we blindly set the stage for disaster. This is what the ancients meant by the word hubris. Berry believes that a modern science based on this arrogant ignorance (and I might add displaying itself with intellectual rhetoric) “resembles much too closely an automobile being driven by a six-year-old or a loaded pistol in the hands of a monkey.”

In the 21st Century so many aspects of our lives are globally informed: the markets that drive our various employments, our entertainment, our digital communication, our politics. What scares me (and Wendell Berry) is the troubling reality that most of these far reaching pieces of our lives are managed by “experts” that don’t have all the answers.

Let me offer a bit of advice, if I may: beware of those with all the answers. We may naturally incline to those with seeming expertise. It gives a sense of security. But in most Areas of our lives, there are always exceptions and limitations to our generalizations and professed knowledge.

I work as a researcher in a large corporation. Our sales and marketing groups are constantly seeking answers - usually quick answers - to complicated questions. They want these answers to be straight forward and easily understood. They love it when a researcher, posing as someone with great authority, provides them with an absolute answer that they are happy with. This sort of answer does two things for them. It answers their question, and it also takes the responsibility of having to make a difficult decision. Who, after all, will go against and absolute statement of a scientist?

Yet this is not the wisest path forward. Much more to be trusted is the scientist that provides not only the answers that are supported by the data, but also provides a disclaimer on the limits of what is actually known, or even contradictions to the data (most people would be surprised at how much contradictory data exists for many things we consider to be fully understood). This kind of scientist is often not very popular, not only because he or she requires someone to make a possibly imperfect decision. But such a scientist also requires someone (or perhaps a group of people) to use wisdom. Someone has to be responsible.

This is the kind of person that Socrates pleaded with the Athenians to consider, all those years ago. There were far too many in his day that seemed to know everything, yet in the end they knew very little. Socrates was the only one who recognized that he did not have all the answers. Because he knew this, he also knew that his detractors didn’t know all that they claimed. He made a lot of enemies when this became apparent. In the end it cost him his life. The Athenians did not want to face the embarrassing reality of their own limitations. We are no different today.

Perhaps the most profound example of the limitation of intellectual rhetoric is found in the ninth chapter of John’s gospel. Here it is recorded that Jesus healed a blind man on the Sabbath. The Pharisees, upon learning this, were upset. They asked the man accusingly how it happened. They brought in his parents and examined them. Then they re-examined the man and cross examined him. The leading intellectuals of the day were absolutely convinced that this miracle could not have happened. It went totally against the logical framework they had built for themselves. But in the end they were wrong and they knew it. Against all their logic and informed reasoning they could not counter the basic fact insisted upon by this man “that, whereas I was blind, now I see.”

Some years later, after the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ, the apostle Peter was faced with another master of intellectual rhetoric. His name was Simon Magus, a Samaritan, who claimed to be a higher god than the Creator Himself. Much of his appeal was due to his quick mind but there was also a compelling shock value that came from his alarming claims. Many who did not like him continued to follow him because of this. Much of his story and the many discussions that he had with Peter are found in the Recognitions of Clement where a version of his abilities can be seen. Simon is a prime example of intellectual rhetoric because he parallels many intellectuals today in the ability he had to out-reason any potential detractors and to go virtually unchallenged. Unchallenged, that is, until he confronted Peter, whose simple consistent and inspired reasoning he could not confound.

Today I worry that we have too few Peters that can stand up to the many clever intellectuals bearing scientific truths. Even knowing that science changes many of its conclusions with every generation, we continue to give the arguments (and their purveyors) carte blanche. As a result we continue facing our many challenges - both local and global challenges - with knee-jerk solutions that end up being far too costly. In the meantime we end up destroying lives, the earth, and the dignity that should be ours to enjoy.

One of Wendell Berry’s answers to this tragedy is that “the arts and sciences need to be made answerable to standards higher than those of any art or science.” Peter obviously had higher standards. Sadly our intellectual community often does not. They often make claims to pursue truth wherever it leads. But this is of little help when decisions are made with imperfect information; or worse, with myopic hubris. If we continue to follow the lead of intellectual rhetoric and the low standards (or no standards) that inform it, we will soon find ourselves being led down a path of complete confusion or complete cynicism - and easy prey to enemies within and without.

Our need for cultural renewal needs to begin now while it is still possible - and while we still have a culture to save. We need to be wise enough to see that this must happen from within ourselves as we make careful, deliberate and faithful decisions – looking both forward and backwards to gain equilibrium even while we look above for direction. It will certainly not come as a sudden gift from smart people, no matter how well-intentioned they might be.

References:

Thomas Sowell’s Intellectuals and Society was published by Basic Books in 2007. Wendell Berry’s essay The Way of Ignorance can be found in the thin volume of essays with the same title (and same author) published in 2005 by Shoemaker and Hoard. The story of Peter and Simon Magus and their several debates is in the Recognitions of Clement. My version is in Volume 8 of the Ante-Nicene Fathers, published by Hendrickson in 1994. Some of the Clementine literature has undoubtedly been modified but Simon was certainly a real detractor of the early Church and I expect that much of his personality can be perceived in what we have of Clement’s account.