Purging vs. Purification

One of the things about Utah Valley that I struggle with more than almost anything else is how easy it is for people to be sheltered. This became all too clear to me (again) this last weekend while driving students home from the symphony. Several students in the back of the car started talking about how before taking my class they didn't know that there was such a thing as other religions.

A friend of mine told me about a conversation he had with students who believed quite literally that there are people in the world who are not good enough to be with them. (Seriously).

I grew up in an environment that was much more openly diverse. We had to learn quickly that if we were going to have friends, we would need to see beyond the difference and to the parts of that person that made them good.

I was reminded again of this lesson today in Sunday School when studying the story of Zacchaeus in Luke 19. Zacchaeus was the Chief Publican - a supervising tax collector, if you will, who was very likely excommunicated from the church by the rest of the Jews because of his profession. In the story, Zacchaeus, who must have been rather short, hears that Jesus is coming and climbs a tree to catch sight of him. Jesus sees him, tells him to come down, and says that he would like to stay in Zacchaeus' house while he is in the city. The Jews that are with the Savior are confused by this - why would Jesus want to stay in the home of a sinner? Well, for one simple reason: Jesus is a purifier, not a purger.

Zacchaeus, though a Publican, is not wicked. In verse eight Zacchaeus tells Jesus that he gives away half of his belongings to the poor and if he makes any mistakes in his tax collection he returns the money plus four times extra for the inconvenience. He is a man with a strange choice of career in the community, perhaps, but Jesus isn't interested in what he has done wrong, he is interested in what he can become.

The teacher pointed out that there is a difference between purging and purifying. Although both words come from similar roots and are often used synonymously, there is a big difference. To purge something is to focus on getting rid of the bad. For example, when you have the flu, the entirety of your body seems to focus more on getting rid of what is bad than on supporting that which is good. When you purify something, your focus is on seeking out the good so that you can enhance it. The best example probably comes in refining gold, which is heated to a very high temperature. The layers of dross are pulled away until the metal is free of impurities. The focus is on the result, not the cause.

Essentially, purging and purifying accomplish the same thing. But the focus is the important part. When we deal with people (or books, or movies, or new experiences, or food, or. . .) so focussed on getting rid of the bad that we don't have time to focus on the good, or are we so focused on enhancing the good that we find that the impurities have separated out of their own accord because they no longer belong?

It's all about perspective.

You're too open/closed minded

Here I am again, sitting in my Biology class and not paying attention. I'd feel bad, but I got 100% on the last test so I don't care much. That and he's lecturing on dinosaurs and those won't be on our test so I don't feel the need to pay attention when I could update my blog!

Exactly one month from now, I'm going to be kissing the ground that JK Rowling has walked on by exploring Edinburgh, Scotland. Just thought you'd all like to know :P

So based on different discussions I've had over the last few days, I've been thinking quite a bit about righteous judgment, particularly as it relates to homosexuality. BYU had a recent uproar with the Soulforce visit (well, maybe not an uproar, but at least a few discussions and arrests). It's been a somewhat interesting experience. I've done enough theater to know several individuals who are gay. Some of them are really happy about it, others aren't, but they live that way whether they like it or not. So-thought number one is this: I find it incredibly ironic that we live in a world that punishes people who are closed minded, which seems to be a code for "you don't believe what I believe and are therefore wrong". Think about what Soulforce wanted in visiting our campus-it's like Liz said in her blog. They don't want discussion. They want to educate us on their point of view and expect us to agree with them. (Which is of course exactly what many people around here want in reverse).

Which brings me to point number two: people who just accept what they're given and don't question it. Moroni's promise is the scientific method. The Lord doesn't want us to be lukewarm-He wants us to question the gospel (with the right spirit of course) and test it for validity. We have to know. Part of this involves finding out what other people believe. Going back to the discussion on homosexuality-I think it's a little too simple for people in our church (and out of it) to say that it's all a choice. As with other mental disorders-manic depression, for example- we don't really know how much of what they feel is a choice, how much of it is driven by what society tells them, and how much of it is driven by some kind of chemical/hormonal imbalance. No, I don't think that God sent anyone here to fail. However, I also think that he takes into account the mentality of the individual-and that is something that none of us have the ability to fully understand, because we are not God.

Unfortunately, the ideal world doesn't exist, and many students on this campus (and outside of it) are just as closed minded as those who claim to be more open minded. Why can't we all just be 'minded'? Why can't we respect differences even when we don't agree with them? Yes-absolute truth is out there. The gospel of Jesus Christ has been restored and the church is true-I'm not debating that. What I find sad is that we forget that other people believe in their God as fervently as we do ours, and with good reason. I have a testimony that this church is true, but others have that same feeling for the church/belief they follow. It's about respect.

So my feelings on Soulforce to wrap things up-I think the theory behind the idea is somewhat admirable. I think it is a good idea to make people aware of the oppression, particularly on a campus like ours where tolerance is occasionally as Andrew Mecham said in the Readers Forum of the Daily Universe today-condescending tolerance. However, I think the underlying reason behind Soulforce is bad both for them, and for us. It makes us look even less tolerant than usual, and it makes them look like people who don't want any more dialogue than we do. The purpose is lost entirely. No one wants discussion, because both sides are full of very vocal people without respect for the other side. Few people bother to research the other side and become slightly more open minded.

Anyway-this didn't end up being the grandiose statement on society I intended it to be (name one of my posts that really did end up being what I wanted it to be-), but I think it's probably because there is no solution. It's like we've been talking about in my Study Abroad class recently-it's all about finding different centers of self, and for anything to work there has to be work done on both sides.

American Literature...and other ramblings

First of all, I am finally back in Happy Valley. Thank heaven for that. There's been plenty of drama back home, from what I hear. And because I think it goes along with today's rant...I'll explain.

Since I was a Freshman in High School, the drama department has done a grand total of 5 plays on tolerance. Our drama teacher is kind of stuck on the "accepting people who are different" rant. Which is fine and great, but after a while you get sick of all the same, downer play where half the people end up dead and or maimed. This years play is no different. My high school is going to put on The Laramie Project. For those of you who are ignorant about the play, I'll explain. The play is made up of monologues from interviews with people who were involved with the murder of Matthew Shepherd, a gay college student in Wyoming. The play contains more than eight "F" words and several other four letter obscenities, not to mention the graphic descriptions of sex and...well, you get the picture. It's not appropriate for high school. There's been a huge amount of uproar about it because the parents are upset. The administration has offered to remove the curse words, but the content is still there.

I could go into a rant about how terrible I think The Laramie Project is, but that's not my point.

I'm getting there, hold on.

Today in my American Lit class we had a discussion about the evolution about what is considered canon, and how that has changed over the years from just the old white guys to include black/Latino/Chinese/women writers etc. Discussions such as that one frustrate me. In my opinion, literature should be color/gender blind. Anthologies shouldn't include writers of a different race/gender/whatever because they are different, they should include the literature itself because it is good. No more should they include the old white guys because they've always been included before. On a very biased note, I'd take out all Hawthorne because I hate his writing, but that's me. My point is: we should read good literature because it's good literature, not because it's old and cliche (Tom Sawyer, for example. Or the Raven), or because it's new and controversial.

All of this fuss, to me, is just another case of the minority taking over the majority. This gets to being a bit of a hairy topic. I'm not saying that the minority shouldn't be heard. It would be a great loss if we didn't have some of the writings, or movies, or whatever from minorities. But at the same time, the majority is being compromised simply because they are a majority. This is why elementary schools in my home town had winter programs about Hanukkah and Kwanza but not Christmas. The majority is so afraid of offending the minority that the majority no longer has an equal shot. A middle class white person is, in many cases, just out of luck. Applying for scholarships is a nightmare, for example. We have become so obsessed with recognizing the new traditions that we have ignored the old ones. Christmas is still a huge part of American tradition whether you choose to celebrate it religiously or not.

This is the problem my parents are running into in protesting The Laramie Project. The majority of parents at home are conservative, but when they speak out against the content of the play, they are called bigots and closed minded.

I don't have a solution to this problem. I can see how both sides would be frustrated. It isn't fair that the majority is the majority. It makes it harder for the minority to get ahead. But it's also not fair for the minority to gain special privileges over the majority. It gets complicated. It's easy for me to say-I've always been told to treat people equally regardless of skin color or gender, or whatever, but this problem is bigger than me. It goes back hundreds of years.

So I guess I'll end with a quote from one of my favorite movies: "Who said life was fair? Where is that written?" It's certainly true. I would just like to know how a race/gender/sexual oriented nation will ever be able to establish what it is attempting to do while it remains obsessed.