Random Thought #130

A member of our ward came up to me the other day and mentioned that he could relate to what I had said in my testimoney a couple of weeks before about a friend of mine who didn't quite see the point in organized religion. This friend felt that he was a good person, believed in God, and generally tried to do what was right. He didn't see the need for all of the structure and rules and limitations and guidelines, etc. etc. I tried to tell him about the necessary ordinances and the priesthood authority but none of that really seemed to work. This fellow member came up to me and said that he had felt the same exact way earlier in his life and was inactive for a time. He relayed his feelings and experiences and we had a good conversation but what struck me most about that encounter was the fact that someone was able to relate so closely to my friend's situation.

I'm sure we've all been in some situation in which either we experience the exact same feelings, thoughts, or experiences as others or they have experienced much the same thing as we have. If you ever need advice, who do you go to? Someone who has been through something similar. If you have a question about how to do something, who do you ask? Someone who has already figured out the answer. It seems that there are cycles of patterns of thoughts, experiences, and/or feelings that different sets of people go through. Not everyone's experience is the same, but there always seems to be someone who we can relate to or who can relate to us.

As parents we teach our children, but what is the source of our teaching? Things we have already experienced or encountered or feel we have a good grip on. When we encounter a new or unfamiliar situation, we often refer to work colleagues, friends, or family. What makes us think they have the answer? I think this speaks deeply to the fact that we are all here to take the same test, we all just have different variations of the test. Remember how in grade school, they would use the same questions on the test but they weren't always in the same order or not all of the questions were on everyone's test. Different questions were left off of different people's tests. All of this was to prevent cheating and give everyone a fair shake. That's what life seems to be like. We all have the same basic test and there are of course similar questions and there are of course certain right answers, but not everyone has the exact same test. It makes one wonder how long this test has been around. I mean, there are other worlds with other spirits and Heavenly Father and Jesus both had to take the test to get to where they are. Our hierarchical understanding of beginning and end isn't able to understand this concept as there much (in our view) be some ultimate test maker. This process has to be recursive somehow. If it is recursive though, we are only looking at some point in time along the loop but we're unable to get outside the system to see who might have created this recursive loop. That leads me to another interesting thought about how our perceptions are constructed based on our surroundings and experiences but I'll go into more depth in the next post.