Continuing from Neal A. Maxwell (yesterday’s post * Things as they really are I)
“The masses feel that it is easy to flea from reality, when it is the most difficult thing in the world.” (Ortega Y. Gassett.)
. . . . The prophet Moroni said, “Despair cometh because of iniquity.” (Moroni 10:22.) When iniquity increases, so do despair and alienation. Paul said also the ignorance of everlasting truths would cause unbelievers to be “alienated from the life of God.”(Ephesians 4:18) No wonder we despair when we sin, because we act against our own interests and against who we really are. When we are imprisoned by iniquity, we turn the cell lock key ourselves.
It is striking when one catalogs those virtues that come to the fore when people act from an eternal perspective that also catalogs those virtues that are necessary for wise mortal civilization. What does one see? He sees both the urgent need for brotherhood and civility. He sees in gospel goals the requirement for self-discipline—and then the same requirement for a free society, since a republic rests, as an unknown writer has said, on “obedience to the unenforceable”; people must checkreign their appetites for their own good and for the good of society.
He sees both the celestial culture for which he is preparing and in our civilization which he struggles to maintain, that a high premium is placed on the individual accountability. He sees in both settings the importance of deferred gratification so that the emphasis on the now does not swallow up everything else; there must be thought and deference to generations yet unborn. He sees in both the requirements for real regard for the basic institution of the family.
Both the man of religion and the civilized man see the need to avoid covetousness, for envy is still envy even when it is politicized. Both also see the importance in not bearing false witness either by gossip or by inaccurate and misleading headlines.
In both theocracy and a genuine democracy there is an overriding concern with personal freedom, for neither personal nor political liberty will last long when inappropriate appetites go unchecked in displays of disregard for people and their property. Salvation and secular survival require the same virtues in the citizenry. The plea for basic values is also a fervent plea for the preservation of civilization, which values must accord with things as they really are.
No wonder we need timeless truths against which to test the lures of the moment. The great truths about things as they really are are immune to obsolescence.
The trueness of immortal things sets them apart from the falseness (or the only partial verity) of many other things. But many people run from these as from other realities. “The masses feel that it is easy to flea from reality, when it is the most difficult thing in the world.” (Ortega Y. Gassett.)
For the partial believer or the unbeliever these basic truths are audacious assertions. Audacity does not guarantee accuracy, of course, but neither are directness and simplicity reasons per se for rejecting something.
The word reality actually appears only once in all of scripture. Jacob employs the word to plead with his readers to awaken to reality, including the truth that “the way for man is narrow, but it lieth in a straight course before him.” At the end of that strait course is the gate where Jesus, the Holy One of Israel, is the gate keeper” and employeth no servant there; and there is none other way.” ~Neal A. Maxwell, Things As They Really Are (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1978), 8-10.
Continued. . . ‘Things as they really are III’
