Continuing (from a previous post) a previous post) Bruce C. & Marie K. Hafen,
“Faith is Not Blind’ As we grow into Stage Two complexity, we can see reality despite its distance from our ideals—“things as they really are” (Jacob 4:13). Only when we see the real and the ideal can we deal with the gap in a constructive way. If we don’t grapple with the frustration that comes facing bravely the uncertainties we encounter, we will lack the deep roots of spiritual maturity. If we don’t see the problems that exist, we won’t be able to help solve them.
However, despite the value of becoming aware of complexity, one’s acceptance of the clouds of uncertainty can be done so complete that the iron rod fades into the surrounding mists and skepticism becomes not just a helpful tool but a guiding philosophy. A person viewing life only from the perspective of complexity will often eliminate his or her upward view of the ideal focus exclusively on the real. In Stage One, the inexperienced person seems to have all the answers, but may not know many of the questions. In Stage Two, that same person can have all the questions, but few of the answers. In Stage One faith is blind because it lacks awareness of reality. In Stage Two, faith is still blind if it sees complexity as the end of the journey of faith, because it has lost its vision of the ideal. A little learning, as valuable as that is, can be dangerous when left to think too highly of itself. The ability to acknowledge ambiguity, and important step in our spiritual development, is not a final form of enlightenment—it is only the beginning.
People who take too much delight in complexity’s tools sometimes try them out in Church classrooms or in conversations with others. They love to cross-examine the unsuspecting, just looking for somebody’s idealistic bubble floating around so they can pop it with their shiny pin of skepticism. But when we burst those bubbles we can lose harmony, trust, and the sense of safety that comes only with the Spirit present. We need to look longer and harder at difficult questions and pat answers, but without lurching to extreme innocence to extreme skepticism. Today’s world is full of hard core skeptics who have “enlightened” those who are stuck in idealistic simplicity, offering them the doubt and agnosticism of complexity as a seemingly brave new way of life.
12-I3 I once learned a how being overly realistic—getting stuck in skeptical complexity—can inhibit the workings of the Spirit. I had been on a mission in Germany about a year, long enough to learn that our work was hard and our successes few. I was assigned to train a new missionary, Elder Keeler. One day when I was away at a leadership meeting, he and another Elder met a pleasant woman at the door, but they didn’t know enough German to talk with her. Yet he said he felt a strong impression that she would someday join the Church.
In fact, he was so excited about her that he forgot to write her name—or her address. He knew only that her apartment was on some fifth floor of our huge high-rise tracting area. He was sure he’d recognize her name next to the doorbell, so the next day we dashed up and down polished staircases for hours, but we couldn’t find her. When I said we needed to go back to work tears came to his eyes, and his lower lip began to tremble. He said, “But Elder Hafen, the Spirit really spoke to me about that woman.’ I muttered that maybe the Spirit was telling him to write down the name and address.
But to teach him a lesson, so I thought, I raced him up and down more staircases. Then, an hour or two later, we found her—Renate Wolfart. And forty years later, Marie and I were with Renate, her husband, Friedrich, and all four of their children and spouses in the Frankfurt Germany Temple. We watched through our tears as Friedrich, now a temple sealer, sealed their youngest daughter to her husband. That’s a lesson I pray I won’t forget: never lose sight of the ideal.” ~~Bruce C. & Marie K. Hafen, Faith is Not Blind (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 2018) p.12-14 continued. . . Faith is Not Blind III)
