God is Helpful

I'm not a huge fan of making phone calls. Cold calling people has never been one of my favorite things to have to do. So, when I was called to be the Brighton Ward Building Cleaning Coordinator, I wasn't looking forward to the part where I'd have to call people to ask them to come help clean the building. I was close to the point where I'd rather just clean the building myself. However, since coordinating volunteer/invitee cleaners is literally part of the job title, I figured I had to do it. And, as it turned out, it wasn't that bad. I had to psych myself up a bit for it, but I managed to make all the calls I needed to to get a decent number of people signed up to help clean the building this weekend. Naturally, I'll still have to make some reminder calls later in the week, and I have the week after that to plan for as well, and so on for the next five months, but hey, it's a start, and it's actually off to a pretty good start, and I know I have God's grace to thank for that.

I know that this is a very minor situation. Most people wouldn't consider a task like this to be worthy of God's attention, but I believe that God is willing to help us in most, if not all of our trials and challenges, even the minor ones. Having to make phone calls is a little bit of a challenge for me, and it's also part of the job God has asked me to do, so I'm not terribly surprised that God helped me do it and made the task far easier than I thought it would be. Besides, God is, in general, a helpful person. One shouldn't be surprised when God proves willing to lend a hand, even with something as mundane as making phone calls.

God cares about us, and He has an interest in helping us succeed, be it in our callings, in our spiritual progression, or even in our day-to-day lives. God's love and sympathy make Him at least as willing to help others as the most helpful people we know. Naturally, that help will take whatever form God knows is best, so we can't always count on God to help us in the ways we want or expect Him to. However, I think it's fair to say that we can count on God to help us, if we ask Him to. If God is willing to help me make the calls I need to make to fulfill my calling, He's almost certainly willing to help you, too.

Looking on the Bright Side

I was recently inspired by the example of someone who has somehow made a living out of looking on the bright side. The Youtube channel CinemaWins was almost certainly created as a response to the popular channel CinemaSins, which criticizes movies for the sake of humor. CinemaWins, in contrast, praises deserving movies and finds the positive aspects of even less-than-stellar films.

The way this Youtube channel focuses on staying positive reminds me that I should do the same. Sure, nothing is perfect, but nothing is perfectly terrible either. There is some good in most things, if not in everything. They say that every cloud has a silver lining, and I think that may be true. Certainly, there are many things bad enough to be worth avoiding, but even many of those have some good in them.

This world isn't all black and white. Just about everything that is good still has room for improvement, and just about everything that is bad still has some positive qualities. It may not be worthwhile to look for the good in certain things, but it's certainly worthwhile to look for the good in people, to recognize it, and to draw attention to it and show appreciation for it. Besides, looking on the bright side is, in general, a happier way to live. I plan to take the CinemaWins approach of looking on the bright side more often.

Repentance is a Process

As I listened to President Russell M. Nelson's talk, We Can Do Better and Be Better, the line that struck me most was the one about repentance:

Nothing is more liberating, more ennobling, or more crucial to our individual progression than is a regular, daily focus on repentance. Repentance is not an event; it is a process.

As I understand it, repentance isn't just seeking forgiveness for individual instances of wrongdoing, though that's certainly part of repentance. In my mind, repentance means change. Repentance means improvement. Repentance means becoming better and learning to do better. Naturally, this takes time. It also takes consistent effort. That's why it's not surprising to me that President Nelson spoke of the need for "a regular, daily focus on repentance." That's what it takes to repent.

As President Nelson said, "Repentance is not an event; it is a process." It's not a one-time apology; it's an ongoing commitment to improve. We don't repent by saying a single prayer; we repent by striving to become better people. While apologizing can be instantaneous, and some of the blessings are available as soon as the process begins, true repentance (along with any other form of personal growth) takes regular, consistent, and frequent effort.

With all that in mind, I'm going to try to set aside time each day to work on self-improvement. I am not yet the best person I can be. I have plenty of room for change and improvement. I guess that means that I need to continue to repent.

Warning the Squirrel

In Where Will This Lead?, President Dallin H. Oaks told a story of college students who watched a dog sneak up on a squirrel over a fairly long period of time, only to be shocked and horrified when the dog actually caught and killed the squirrel. As President Oaks pointed out, any of the students could have warned the squirrel and saved its life, but none of them did, and many of them regretted their inaction afterward. President Oaks used this story to illustrate the general principle of looking ahead and asking ourselves the question that forms the title of his talk, but I shudder to think of what a more one-to-one interpretation of this parable might mean.

All around us, we see people who are headed toward spiritual danger. We see people who commit serious sins and also encourage others to do so. Some of them don't realize that what they're doing is wrong, and some of them don't care that God considers their behavior wrong, but none of them have any idea what's in store for them come Judgment Day.

Yet, we do.

We may not know the full extent or details of their future consequences, but we do know that there are consequences for breaking God's commandments. We know that they are in great spiritual danger. We should warn them.

But we know that they don't want to know. Many of them won't believe us. Some of them may even get angry at us for "pushing our religion on them" and/or for "being bigoted." Needless to say, as prophets have proven time and time again in ancient and far-less-ancient times, people don't like being told that they're sinning, even though acknowledging those sins and repenting of them would save their spiritual lives. Warned sinners may turn against the ones who did the warning, which is precisely why I am reluctant to do that.

I see the squirrel, oblivious of all peril. I see the dog, sneaking slowly but surely up on that squirrel. Yet, I don't dare warn the squirrel about the dog because I'm afraid that the squirrel is more likely to bite me than to listen to any warning. This is, of course, a weak excuse not to even try to warn the squirrel, but if warning the squirrel is just going to get me hurt and not actually save the squirrel, I'm not sure I see the point. I know that I should warn the squirrels I know, but I worry that they would get annoyed at me and possibly even attack me for doing so.

The Post-Mortal Interview

Included in President Henry B. Eyring's talk on The Power of Sustaining Faith is the reminder that, someday, we will all have a post-mortal interview with the Lord.

I'm not really looking forward to that. I find God somewhat intimidating, despite the fact that He's my Father. And I especially don't want to have to go over all the dumb mistakes I've made in my life.

Fortunately, I may not have to. D&D 58:42 says "Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more." If the Lord doesn't remember my sins, He probably won't remember to ask me about them.

At any rate, whether He asks me about my sins or not, I'll feel a lot better in that interview if I can honestly say that I've put them behind me. Job interviews often cover the interviewee's weaknesses, and it's fair to say that we all have them, so there's no sense in being ashamed of that, but it feels a lot better to discuss weaknesses that we've already learned from and overcome than ones that we still struggle with, at least in my limited experience.

So, we are going to be interviewed, at the end of it all. During that interview, how we feel about the experience will depend largely on what we do now. So, I hope we make wise decisions and fully repent of our sins before they have a chance to come up in the interview. I, for one, can think of a few things I would rather not have come up in my post-mortal interview. Then, I guess I have some repenting to do.

When God's Not Around

I'm a little late in blogging about this, but in Elder Kim B. Clark's recent General Conference talk, he quoted John 16:32, in which Jesus says “I am not alone, because the Father is with me.” Elder Clark shared this to remind us that God will be with us to support us in our trials and in our attempts to be righteous. This concept is given additional support by John 8:29, in which Jesus says "and he that sent me is with me: the Father hath not left me alone; for I do always those things that please him." Yet, in last week's Sunday School readings, we read that, during His crucifixion, Jesus said, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" (Matt 27:46; Mark 15:34). It would seem that Jesus felt as though God wasn't there to comfort and strengthen Him, at least not in that exact moment. But we know that Jesus was still perfectly righteous and perfectly worthy of remaining within God's presence, so what happened that prompted Jesus to ask that question, and what implications does that moment have for each of us?

The Come, Follow Me manual goes a long way toward answering the first question simply by quoting Elder Jeffrey R. Holland:

I testify … that a perfect Father did not forsake His Son in that hour. … Nevertheless, that the supreme sacrifice of His Son might be as complete as it was voluntary and solitary, the Father briefly withdrew from Jesus the comfort of His Spirit, the support of His personal presence. … For [the Savior’s] Atonement to be infinite and eternal, He had to feel what it was like to die not only physically but spiritually, to sense what it was like to have the divine Spirit withdraw, leaving one feeling totally, abjectly, hopelessly alone.

(“None Were with Him,” Ensign or Liahona, May 2009, 87–88)

 So, it would seem that God didn't forsake Jesus entirely, but He did temporarily withdraw His Spirit, not because Jesus had done anything wrong, but because doing so would make the test more solitary and complete. As bumper stickers and Facebook posts occasionally remind us, when God seems absent during times of trial, we should remember that the teacher is always silent during a test.

Throughout our lives, we will be tested to see whether we can be trusted to obey God's commandments, and some of those tests involve an apparent lack of support and supervision. The question isn't always just "Will we be good people?" Sometimes, it's "Will we be good people, even when God's not around?"

Over those few days at the end of His mortal life, Jesus faced His ultimate test, and part of the intensity of that test was having to go through part of it without the heavenly aid He rightfully deserved. Yet, Jesus stood firm and passed the test despite the apparent lack of Celestial aid, and so can we.

We occasionally feel like God isn't always around to help us, and it is sometimes our fault that He's not, but we can endure our trials and overcome many of our obstacles, even when it feels like we're not getting God's help in doing so. Sometimes, part of the trial is having to overcome it apparently alone.

Personally, I'm not convinced that God ever leaves us. It seems to me that He always has at least a few of His angels and a portion of His Spirit watching over us, ready and willing to offer their comfort and support when they can, yet that's not always possible, and that's not always anybody's fault. I believe that God is never far away from us, even when we push Him away, but I also believe that He sometimes doesn't make His presence known to us, regardless of our righteousness, if only to make the trials of life a proper test. It's not as much of a challenge to be our best selves when we know that God is there, both to help us and to judge us, but it is a much more daunting challenge to maintain those standards when if feels like God's not around, even if He secretly is.

Quality Time with Family

I spent the better part of this afternoon and all of this evening hanging out with with some of my nieces and nephews. It was a lot of fun, and we should definitely do it more often. It was good to get out of the house, spend time with family, especially those I don't see often, and do some running around. I sometimes worry that I'm too sedentary and that I don't socialize enough. Spending time with family cures both of those problems. I'm glad that I visit with family members regularly, and I'm glad that I still occasionally visit with the family members I don't see regularly. It's good to keep in touch. Families strengthen each other in several ways, and one of those ways is by giving people excuses to spend quality time with others.

Giving Much

This week, two stories told in Sacrament Meeting reminded me that even those who have very little can give much. The first story was of a mother who searched through empty cupboards to find a can of peaches to donate to a food drive, and the second story was about pioneers who, despite having few and limited resources, were willing to share their goods with those who needed it.  These stories reminded me of the widow's mite, and I think that the generosity of the mother and the pioneers will be recognized, just as the widow's generosity was. Those who have very little, but still give generously, exercise great generosity, for which they will likely be greatly rewarded.

When those who have much give much, that's great. Those people do a great deal of good through their donations. The world needs many people like them. But the world also needs those who have little, but still give some. Their generosity is inspiring, and it calls down the blessings of Heaven on them and on those who follow their example. Generosity isn't just measured by the amount one gives; it's also measured by the sacrifice one has to make to give it. That's how those who have little can still give much. It may not be a great donation, but it is a great sacrifice, and thankfully, great sacrifices are always rewarded with great blessings.

No One Is Perfect

During his last General Conference talk, Elder Carl B. Cook briefly mentioned how his family situation growing up wasn't the greatest, and how he might not have done well because of it. He said, "Some may have considered me a long shot and an underdog because of my family situation. Maybe I was. . . . There are long shots and underdogs all around us. Perhaps we all are in one way or another." He went on to talk about the main point of his talk, how Priesthood Quorums can be "places of belonging" where members of the quorum can get the kind of support that they might not be getting elsewhere, but my mind instead latched on to the idea that we might all be underdogs.

No one is Superman. No one is Wonder Woman. We are all flawed individuals who face everyday challenges and who strive and struggle to overcome them. We don't need to be embarrassed, and we don't need to feel overshadowed by those we perceive as being perfect. Nobody is perfect. We may struggle with different problems to different degrees, but we all struggle, so we don't need to feel ashamed. Instead, we should sympathize with each other and try to help each other, especially since, to one degree or another, everyone could use the help.

A Personal Solution to Overwhelming Problems

In the face of overwhelming problems, one thing we can do is hold fast to our moral principles, especially the most central and important ones, like loving God and our neighbors and keeping the Ten Commandments. Maintaining our personal standards of righteousness may not, by itself, solve all the world's problems, but it should help keep us from becoming part of those problems, and it may even help us become part of the solutions. Exercising and advocating morality will help reduce crime and suffering, even if our efforts are too small to make a perceptible difference. Those efforts can add up. The more people in the world choose to be righteous, the better off the world will be. And it can start with us. We can be good, and we can be good examples in encouraging others to be good. We each have a limited influence and a limited sphere of influence, but when we each do our part, we can help improve the lives and behavior of those around us. We can make the world better by making part of the world better, even if that part is limited to ourselves.

Overwhelming Problems

After having long conversations about only a handful of the many problems in the world, I found it easy to feel overwhelmed and discouraged. Fortunately, I know that God has the power to right all wrongs and that He will eventually do so. Everything that is broken will be fixed. All who have been wounded will be healed. The wicked will face justice, and the penitent will receive grace. Sure, many things are terrible now, but it will all be alright in the end. So, I will try to exercise faith and patience while I wait for God to right all wrongs, even as I try to exercise patience and diligence in trying to right some wrongs along the way. The many problems of this world are daunting, but all of those problems will be ultimately be solved. We can and should try to solve as many as we can solve, and we should trust God to bless our efforts and to solve the rest. This world won't be Telestial forever. This world will become a better place, partly through our efforts, and mostly through God's. The world has lots of overwhelming problems, but we can solve some of them, and we can safely leave the rest up to God.

Fun for All

One of the challenges of a DM is to make sure all the players are having a good time. This can be difficult, as players often like different things, so DMs have to prepare a variety of different scenarios. I mostly failed at that tonight. I knew that the game would start with a combat encounter, and then we ran into a second combat encounter. The third encounter we ran into tonight wasn't supposed to involved combat, but it did involve goblins, so one of the players started a fight. We managed to do a few things that weren't fighting this evening, but we spent a good deal of tonight's session in combat, and it seemed to me that some of the players were starting to get tired of it. Next time, I'm going to try to set up situations where it's abundantly obvious that violence isn't the answer. Still, I'm going to try to make sure there's at least one combat encounter each night, too, since the players who enjoy combat should have opportunities to have fun as well. It's hard to keep everyone happy when they all want different things, but I'm certainly willing to try.

The Forgiving of the Ignorant

One thing that has caught my attention about this week's Come Follow Me readings was that one verse in Luke 23 in which Jesus says of those who are crucifying Him "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do."

This caught my attention for two reasons. The first is that, if there's any hope of forgiveness for those who killed the Savior, there's certainly plenty of hope for the rest of us. And the second reason this verse caught my attention is that I wonder how important it was that they didn't know what they were doing. Those without the law can't justly be condemned for not living by it, but that doesn't give everyone without the law license to commit whatever sins they want. One does not need to hear the words "Thou shalt not kill" in order to know that murder is wrong. So, I wonder how much the guards would have known and to what extent they would be accountable for their actions.

I think it's fair to assume that they knew that killing innocent people is wrong. Most cultures have established at least that low baseline of morality. However, it is not always immoral to execute the guilty. So, did those guards know that Jesus was innocent? They must have known that Pilate had said so. Pilate announced repeatedly he had found no fault in Jesus, certainly nothing worthy of death. Yet, the guards also must have known that Pilate gave the order for Christ to be crucified, and the crowd certainly seemed insistent that He was worthy of death, so it's possible that the guards thought Jesus was guilty and that Pilate just didn't see it. After all, not everyone can identify a murderer on sight or with just a few interrogations. Maybe Jesus was guilty of something, and Pilate just hadn't seen enough evidence to be confident in saying so. It's possible that the guards genuinely thought Jesus was guilty of that of which He was accused. It's possible that they thought they were executing a deserving criminal and had no idea that Jesus was innocent, let alone perfect.

But where does that leave us? We are not guilty of such great sins as murdering the innocent, so we have that going for us. However, we also know some things about the Gospel, and we probably have a pretty good idea that we really ought to repent of some of the things we do. We are not guilty of such great sins as the guards were, yet we're also not as ignorant of our sins as the guards may have been. Jesus seemed to think there was some hope for His crucifiers. Is there also hope for us?

The answer, thankfully, is yes, though not entirely for the same reason. Christ may have forgiven the guards on account of their ignorance of the wrong they were doing, but He offers us the same forgiveness on the condition of repentance. Christ's Atonement covers all sins,whether they were committed knowingly or not, whether they're repented of or not. But whether we're forgiven or not depends largely on us. The guards were forgiven because they were more or less ignorant.  We, too, can be forgiven, but only if we repent.

The Planeswalker Uniqueness Rule

Disclaimer: Unless you want to listen to me ramble on about Magic for several paragraphs, you might want to skip to the last paragraph. That's when I finally get to the spiritual point of this blog post.

There used to be a rule in Magic: the Gathering that said that you couldn't have more than one of the same type of planeswalker under your control at the same time. You couldn't have two versions of Gideon on the field at the same time. Even now, planeswalkers are considered "Legendary" and are subject to the legends rule. You can't have two planeswalkers of the same name on your side at the same time. You can now have Gideon, Martial Paragon and Gideon, Ally of Zendikar on the field at the same time, but you still can't have two copies of Gideon, Martial Paragon in play at the same time, so the "Planeswalker Uniqueness Rule" still sort of applies.

The idea that planeswalkers should be unique applies to the design of planeswalkers as well. Just about every type of planeswalker has their own unique niche. Using Gideon as an example again, he often fights hand-to-hand, leading a charge of soldiers, relying on his magical invulnerability to keep him safe on the front line. As such, most of his planeswalker cards have abilities that turn him into an indestructible soldier creature and that create more soldiers and/or empowers them. Gideon is the soldier planeswalker. Being a soldier and leading soldiers is his mechanical and thematic niche.

Ever since I started playing Magic, I've wanted to have my own made-up planeswalker character, but I always wanted my planeswalker to be unique. I wanted my planewalker to do things that no other planeswalker did. So, on October 30, 2018, I looked at all the planeswalkers with abilities similar to those I wanted my planeswalker to have and tried to determine whether my character's abilities were unique enough to not overlap with any other planeswalker's niche.

When I discovered that the only planeswalkers that dealt with elementals did so by turning lands into elementals, I learned that part of my character's niche could be creating elementals (specifically lightning elementals) that were not also lands. Sure, there was one planeswalker that created non-land elementals, but that was only one copy of a planeswalker whose actual niche was pyromancy. That planeswalker's name was Chandra. At the time, there were several different versions of Chandra, and only one of them dealt with elementals, so I figured I could pick up the elementals niche without stepping on her toes too much.

That was true until just recently, when three new Chandra cards were revealed, all of which interact with elementals. This presented me with a problem. Chandra was learning to use elementals, but I still wanted my planeswalker to be unique. However, I know that this desire for uniqueness is impractical. No matter what ideas I come up with for my character, someone is eventually going to come up with those same ideas for actual, in-game planeswalker characters. It was unrealistic to think that my character could keep elementals all to himself forever. And, as it turns out, he doesn't have to, and it's all thanks to the lore.

Chandra is a pyromancer, while my character is a sparkmage. Chandra uses fire and creates fire elementals, while my character uses lightning and creates lightning elementals. Mechanically, there is very little difference between fire and lightning in the card game, but in other systems, fire and lightning are separate, though sometimes related, elements. Fire elementals and lightning elementals are different kinds of beings, even if the card game makes little distinction between them.

But the real reason I'm okay with both Chandra and my planeswalker character using elementals is the fact that I can pretend that Chandra learned the benefits of using elementals from my character. You see, Chandra is one of the founding members of a planeswalker organization called the Gatewatch, and, in my personal version of the story in which my character exists, so is my character. Since they were both members of the Gatewatch for quite some time, they would have had the opportunity to watch each other use magic and to learn some of each others' tricks, especially if they specifically trained each other in their techniques. Chandra already had the ability to create elementals before meeting my character, but most of her cards reflect the fact that she prefers to burn things herself. My character could have been the one to show her that elementals are useful for far more than burning things, which might have sparked her current interest in developing the skill of using them.

But really, the whole idea of uniqueness is kind of overrated. People and ideas don't have to be unique just for the sake of being unique. Good ideas are worth borrowing, and good people are even more worthy of emulation. Besides, people are all unique anyway, even when they are actively trying to copy others. So instead of trying to make sure my planeswalker character has unique abilities, I should try to make sure he is a decent character, at least from a storytelling perspective. And instead of worrying whether I and my ideas are unique, I should focus on making sure that my ideas and I are good, even if that makes me "too" similar to other good people and my ideas "too" similar to other good ideas. Whether we're talking about ideas, fictional characters, or real people, being unique isn't terribly important; being good is.

Missing a Window of Opportunity

Today, a stranger sat near me at church, and I felt like I should do something friendly, like introduce myself and maybe strike up a conversation, but I hesitated a bit too long, and the stranger moved to sit by another member, who seemed to be a friend of his. I don't know what might have happened if I would have said 'hi' to him, but I kind of regret not taking the chance while I had it.

We don't always know how long our windows of opportunity will stay open. We sometimes try to plan out our actions, but we don't always have that kind of time. When it comes to doing good, maybe it's better to act on impulse than to hesitate, procrastinate, or spend too long planning what to say or do. In general, planning ahead is far more wise than rushing into things, but when it comes to doing good, it's better to rush it and stumble a bit than it is to take too long preparing and miss your chance to do it at all.

I didn't take my chance to talk to a stranger at church because I took too long waiting for a good moment and trying to think of what to say. In hindsight, I instead should have followed my impressions quickly and say whatever popped into my head. Saying almost anything would have been better than saying nothing. I missed an opportunity to be welcoming because I took too long to seize the opportunity.  If and when God gives me another opportunity, I hope I won't take too long to seize it next time.

Short-Term and Long-Term Wants

Before Gary E. Stevenson got to the "playbook" part of his talk about Your Priesthood Playbook, he briefly discussed other spiritual lessons we can learn from sports, including the lesson of setting aside short-term wants in favor of long-term wants.

Most of us find our short-term wants rather compelling. We want to sleep when we want to sleep. We want to eat whatever we want. We want to do what we feel like doing in any given moment. It takes discipline to do otherwise. To get what we want in the future, we often have to set aside some of the things we want now.

This is as true for Eternal Life as it is for skill in sports. To become skilled at a sport, one has to give up rest and other forms of recreation in order to practice and train. In order to gain Eternal Life, we have to forgo many temporal many temporal wants, or at least hold them as a lower priority. To become the best athlete, we have to give it our best effort. To achieve Eternal Life, we have to put the Kingdom of God first.

This can be difficult, as the natural man doesn't much care about the future and is concerned mainly with the desires of the present. In order to act with discipline, we need to learn to keep the natural man in check and make our bodies subject to the will of our minds and spirits. This is easier said than done, but it can be done, and thinking about our future desires can help us. It's easier to give up our short-term wants when we focus our minds on our long-term goals. Making our long-term wants more compelling than our short-term wants isn't likely to happen without conscious effort.

That's why it's important to continually remind ourselves what we really want, what we'll want in the future, so we don't get too distracted by what we want now. Our short-term wants are very tempting, but our long-term wants are far more noble and important. Our long-term wants are the ones that really matter. We should learn to behave accordingly.

The Economy of Hell

You may have heard of something call the "Economy of Heaven." The concept comes (as near as I can tell) from an October 1976 talk by Neal A. Maxwell, then of the First Council of the Seventy: "In the economy of heaven, God does not send thunder if a still, small voice is enough, or a prophet if a priest can do the job." In general, God doesn't tend to exercise any more of His power than He deems necessary. Recently I wondered whether this tendency holds true for other other-worldly beings. If there is an economy of heaven, is there also an economy of hell?

You may also have heard of the story of two travelers.The way I remember it, a certain man saw two travelers, and an angel gave the man the ability to see how many devils were tempting each of the travelers. The first traveler had a whole consortium of devils around him, and the man thought he must have been very wicked, but the angel corrected him, telling him that the traveler was so strong at resisting temptation, it took a great number of devils working together to challenge him. The second traveler had only one devil tempting him, and the man thought the second traveler must have been fairly righteous to have only one devil near him, but the angel again corrected him, saying that the traveler was so wicked that only one devil was needed to prod him along.

I can't recall the source of this story, and I can't vouch for its doctrinal accuracy (or lack thereof, as the case may be), but it does stand to reason that anyone with finite resources would want to employ those resources wisely, and the adversary only has a certain number of devils at his command. Satan isn't likely to send dozens on devils after someone who would yield to the temptations of a few. Yet, he also wants to sway as many souls as he can, so he sends as many devils as he has to to tempt as many people as he can. I think it's likely that, just as God gives His toughest challenges to the strongest people, Satan probably does the same.

So if you find that Satan is fighting hard against you, take heart. That probably means he fears your strength and what good you might do with it. And if you find that you're not facing strong temptations, you might want to do some soul-searching. If Satan isn't trying hard to tempt you, it may be because he doesn't think he has to. So, count your devils. If you're not facing much opposition, that may be because Satan thinks he's already winning the fight for your soul, but if you far facing a lot of opposition, that may be because you're winning.

Boros Legion Rules and Regulations

Several months ago now, I bought a Boros Legion Guild Kit, which included a Magic deck, deck box, spindown life counter die, sticker, and enamel pin, all based on the Boros Legion, one of the ten guilds of Ravnica in Magic: the Gathering. The Boros, as I'm sure I've mentioned before, are basically the military of Ravnica. They fight the forces of evil and chaos that threaten to tear the city apart. According to the Guildmaster's Guide to Ravnica, if you want to be a paladin or a knight in shining armor, the Boros Legion might be a good fit.

The Guild Kit also contained a 5x10.5 inch card with a picture of the Guildleader on one side and a list of "Boros Legion Rules and Regulations" on the other. The six rules listed on the card are more like rules to live by than they are like military regulations, but as rules to live by, they're pretty solid. I thought I'd list them here and possibly blog more about the individual rules later. I'll add numbers for convenience's sake, and I'll modify the capitalization to reflect the emphatic larger and smaller font sizes in the original, but I'll leave the punctuation unchanged.

1. STAND TALL. Even your posture should embody justice!
2. ACT WITH HONOR in all things.
3. PROTECT the innocent, at any cost.
4. You are never truly off duty. EVIL NEVER RESTS!
5. Stay in top PHYSICAL CONDITION.
6. If you see evil, CRUSH IT.

While I have some concerns about the last rule on this list, the rest of these rules, and this list of rules as a whole, seem like fairly good guidelines for life. Acting with honor and protecting the innocent are definitely worthy goals, having good posture and maintaining a healthy lifestyle is certainly good advice, and remembering that one must be constantly vigilant and diligent against evil is vital to one's spiritual well-being. I wonder how these rules would define "evil" and how literally they intend me to "crush it," but there are interpretations of this rule that I can live by, so I'll let those questions rest for now and instead focus more on the five other rules, particularly those that govern moral behavior, not just physical behavior.

It is good and wise to act with honor, to protect the innocent, and to diligently fight against evil (at least spiritually, if not physically). I'll put this list of rules and regulations somewhere I can see it often. If nothing else, it's good life advice, and I intend to follow it.

Working Within Limitations

Earlier tonight, I asked the DM of the D&D game I play at the comic book shop if it would be possible for me to play a paladin in the upcoming campaign, and I got the impression that that might or might not work out, depending on the finer details of the campaign and the choices that I and the other players make during character creation. I might still be able to play a paladin, but I might not.

But you know what? That's okay, I can still play a Lawful Good character of any class, and I can still act like a paladin in real life. I can still get all the paladin practice I need, whether I play a paladin in the next campaign or not.

In life, we shouldn't let our circumstances and limitations stop us from doing them best we can with what we're given. Sure, I'd prefer to play a paladin in the campaign, but I have other options that are almost as good. I can still play a character that acts with honor and morality. Heck, even in the pirates campaign, I was able to shape my character into having some sense of honor and of devotion to his goddess. Sure, she's the goddess of piracy, but Krusk's devotion to her can still act as a model for my devotion to God.

I saw a post on Facebook recently that said, in essence, "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can." That's basically all we can do. I can't put a paladin into a story where a paladin wouldn't fit, not without hindering everyone else's fun. We're all trying to play this game together, and that requires cooperation, which sometimes requires compromise. I might not be able to be a paladin this time around, but I can still (probably) be a Good character, and that'll probably be good enough. In any case, I can still act like a paladin in real life, which is far more important anyway.

So, I might not be able to play a paladin in the next campaign after all, but that's fine. I'll work within my limitations to make a character that's a paladinic as I can make him, at least in spirit. Similarly, I cannot literally be a paladin in real life, and I also lack the will-power to act like a paladin all the time, but I can still try, in spite of my limitations, to be as much like a paladin as possible. Regardless of our abilities and opportunities or the lack thereof, we can all use what we have to do what we can, and that's all that God can ask of us, and it's all that we should ask of ourselves. I won't fret about doing the impossible. I'll just do the best I can.

"Above All Other Fruit"

In my personal scripture study, I was reminded that Lehi described the fruit of the the tree of life as being "desirable above all other fruit" (1Nephi 8:12). That means it's more desirable than anything else we can get in this world. It's better than having fun and sleeping in. It's better than chocolate and other treats. It's better than all the material possessions on the earth combined. The fruit of the gospel is better than anything else we could possibly want instead, and it's worth any sacrifice to get it. So I'll try not to forget the value of the prize I'm fighting for, and I'll try not to let any lesser prize distract me from achieving my ultimate goal.

True Dedication

This week, we're learning about the final days of Jesus' life, and one idea that has stuck with me so far is that Jesus Christ didn't really want to go through with The Atonement (and who could blame Him?), yet He went ahead with it anyway, even though it was painful. That's true dedication. Most people can muster up the courage to overcome adversity to accomplish something they really want to do, but our Savior showed great determination by overcoming difficulties in order to do something that He would rather not have had to do. I think He would have avoided it, if He could have, but He saw it through, largely because we needed Him to. Christ wasn't enthusiastic about the idea of The Atonement, but He was devoted to helping us, and going through with The Atonement, despite not wanting to, demonstrated a strong sense of dedication.

My Opinion on Sharing Opinions

It has been said that opinions are like buttholes. Everybody has one, and they all stink. However, they are also like buttholes for another reason: it's a bad idea to share one with another person unless you're sure they're okay with it.

Of course, exposing one's actual butthole to someone who doesn't want to see it is much, much worse than sharing your opinion with someone who doesn't want to hear it. It's not exactly inappropriate to share an unsolicited opinion, and it certainly isn't criminal, like an indecent exposure is, but it's still not a good way to get someone to consider your opinion. Just as a person isn't going to want to think about a butt they didn't want to see, they're not likely to want to consider an opinion they didn't want to hear. Consent matters. If a person doesn't ask for your opinion, it's smart to ask them if they want to hear it before you share it with them.

I'm not saying that it's never appropriate to share your opinion with someone. Heck, I'm sharing my opinion with you right now. I'm just saying that, if you want people to actually consider your opinion, you should first establish that they're willing to listen to it. Otherwise, you can fairly safely assume that they don't want to hear it and that they won't react well to you sharing yours with them anyway.

Flawed Heroes

I've spent a portion of today thinking about flawed heroes. Heroes are role models. Ideally, their behavior would be worthy of admiration and emulation, but they aren't always that good. Sometimes, heroes have less-than-heroic traits. In those cases, the best heroes are the ones who acknowledge their flaws and strive to overcome them.

In fact, those role models may be even better than those who are already perfect. Perfect people don't actually exist, making perfect heroes difficult to relate to. It's far easier, and more beneficial, to relate to the heroes who strive to overcome their flaws and hopefully eventually succeed at becoming better people and even better heroes.

I think that it's important for some heroes to have flaws. We can have a few moral paragons, but we should have more down-to-earth heroes, too. And when heroes do have flaws, I believe that it is vital that the heroes come to recognize their flaws and strive to overcome them, even if they don't always succeed. A big part of the main purpose of life is self-improvement, so it's important to have role models who have some room to improve and who actively try to do so.

True in Time

I'm still trying to convince myself that it's okay to act like a paladin, or rather to act like a moral and virtuous person, when I'm not one. It feels like I'm lying, but the reason I'm lying is to help me make it true. I'm not just faking it until I make it; I'm faking it to help me make it. It is my hope that acting like a paladin will help me become a paladin, and if I succeed, it won't be a lie anymore. I tell myself that I am a paladin to remind myself to be a paladin, and if I actually heed that reminder, I will be a paladin. So the statement "I am a paladin" is not technically true yet, but my hope is that it will be true in the future, which would make it kind of quasi-true now.

This situation reminds me of the time in 1 Nephi 5:5 in which Lehi says "I have obtained a land of promise," even though, at the time he says that, it'll still be years before he sees it. Lehi must have had enough faith in God and His promise to consider the whole Promised Land thing a done deal. It was yet to happen, but Lehi considered it so certain that he could treat it as though it already had happened.

I am not as certain that I will be a paladin as Lehi was that he had received a land of promise. I may fail to become a paladin and thus make a liar of myself. Yet, if that happens, I'll have worse sins to worry about than lying, so I haven't got much to lose, and if I do become a paladin, not only will the worse sins be taken care of, but also the statement "I am a paladin" will have become true. So, it is not yet true that I am a paladin, but if I tell myself that I am enough times for me to believe it and act on it, the statement will become true in time, sort it's kinda sorta as good as true now.

A Good Team and the Right Tools

This morning, I spent a few hours helping some family members do some pretty hefty work that I thought would take the whole day, if not multiple days, and it certainly would have, if one person tried to do it by themselves and by hand. Instead, we had a small, well-organized team equipped with power tools and heavy machinery that made the job so much easier. When you've got a good team and the right tools, anything's possible.

In the Gospel, God has provided us with the teammates and tools we need to accomplish even the loftiest of Celestial goals. Our support structures, both within the church and beyond the veil, can strengthen us, counsel us, and aid us in innumerable other ways. And the blessings God gives us, both in this life and the next, can give us the ability to accomplish that which would otherwise be impossible.

I'm thankful for all the help God has given me. With that help, I've been able to make progress toward goals that I know would be impossible without the help. I know that, with God, nothing is impossible. When we team up with Him and make good use of the tools He gives us, we can accomplish anything we need to do.

Faking It

The main reason I'm excited for the next campaign is that I'll get to play a paladin, which will hopefully help me become like a paladin. But I've also thought, if acting like a paladin for a few hours once per week would help me gradually become like a paladin, wouldn't acting like a paladin more often help me become like a paladin faster? In fact, why not act like a paladin as much as possible, if not all the time? Sure, I would only be pretending to be that good, at least at first, but if that meant that I would be acting that good, isn't that worth something? Performing good acts is a good thing, even if it is only an act.

Or is it? I have my doubts, but I may be making this situation more complicated than it really is or needs to be. Arguably, anything that leads to good results is, itself, good. If acting like a paladin helps me be a better person, then maybe I should pretend to be a paladin more often, even though it is just pretend. I would be faking it, and one shouldn't be fake, but I'd only be faking it until I make it. As long as I "make it" by becoming a good person, it may not (and hopefully will not) matter how I got there. I can't say for certain, but if it works, maybe acting more righteous would be okay, even if it is, at first, just and act.

Co-op Mode

Many of the games I like involve, or at least allow, cooperation between the players. This is especially true in D&D, where the game is built around the idea of players working together to achieve common goals, but it's also true of many other games. Many Mario games support multi-player cooperation, as do many FPS games. Sure, those games allow players to play against each other, but they also allow players to play on the same team. I enjoy co-op a lot more than competitive play because, in competitive play, one player wins while the other players lose, which can lead to hard feelings between the players, but in co-op mode, all the players win or lose together, which can build camaraderie. In many cases, win or lose, I'd rather play with my friends than play against them.

Unfortunately, not all games allow for multi-player co-op modes; however, life itself does. With almost anything we can do, we can help each other do it. Some activities, such as taking tests, must be done alone, but we can still study together, and we can find other ways to cooperate in other situations. Cooperation is almost always an option.

In fact, in a spiritual sense, cooperation is essentially required. Unless we somehow manage to pass all the tests of life perfectly, we need the help of our Savior and His cleansing Atonement. We also regularly require guidance from God and His Holy Spirit, who can serve as our constant companion, our "Player Two," even in situations that don't normally allow cooperation, like in tests. If we keep the Spirit with us, we can always have a co-op partner, in addition to our mortal friends and families.

Life is a tough game, and has some punishing mechanics, but at least it allows for a good deal of multi-player cooperation, which makes the game a lot easier. So, if there's a part of the game you're struggling with, don't hesitate to seek out the help of a friend. It'll help the game get a bit easier, and besides, it's more fun playing together than it is playing alone.

How to Win

I was about to blog about one topic, using D&D as just one of many possible examples, but then I realized something that I want to blog about more: D&D has no set objective. There is no one set way to "win" at D&D.

It's not like any Mario game, where you win by saving Princess Peach. It's not like any sport, where you win by having more points than the other guys at the end of the game. It's not even like Minecraft, where you can mess around as long as you want, but can still win the game by completing the End Portal and defeating the Ender Dragon. Sure, there are some elements of D&D that feel like winning, like winning battles and earning enough XP to level up, but there are no actual mechanics in D&D that say "If you do X, you win the game."

That lack of win conditions leaves it up to the players to make up their own. The players and/or the DM can make up their own objectives. Often, the DM has some kind of plot or goal for the players to accomplish together. Sometimes, players make up their own personal goals for their characters. When the players and/or the DM set their own goals for the game, they can choose what counts as a "win" for them. For example, I want Krusk Bloodfist to become a Champion of Besmara (and hopefully get revenge against his treacherous ex-wife, but that's somewhat negotiable). As long as Krusk earns enough XP to gain one more level in Fighter, so he can take the Champion archetype, or as long as Besmara simply accepts him as (one of?) her champion(s?), I'll count that as a win, even if Krusk dies in the process.

Real life both is and is not like that. In real life, people can set their own goals. We can decide to attempt or work on literally anything we can think of. We can set whatever goals or objectives we want, and if we accomplish those goals and reach those objectives, we can pretty much say that we won, at least at those things.

However, there is also one set, objective goal for everyone who ever lived. God has established certain objectives, and everyone who accomplishes those objectives earns the prizes linked to those objectives. By keeping the commandments, we can, in essence, "win" at life. From a certain point of view, that's really the only way to win at life.

So, whether we're choosing our own short-term goals or whether we're pursuing the long-term goals set by God (preferably both), there are ways to win at life, just as there are kind of, technically ways to "win" at D&D. It's all about accomplishing the objectives. Most games have set objectives. Some games let you choose your own. D&D falls mostly in the latter category. Real life incorporates a little bit of both. God has established clear objectives for us to accomplish, but other than that, how we play and win the game of life is mostly up to us.

A Plague Tale: Innocence and the Weight of Death

Now that I've blogged about Elder Holland's talk once or twice, I want to spend just one more blog post complaining about A Plague Tale: Innocence.

At the start of the game, the protagonists are totally innocent. They're kids. Sure, the player character, Amicia, is a teenager, and she has a chip on her shoulder, but that's fairly understandable. By and large, they're good kids, and they're certainly good people; however, the world they live in (and are trying not to die in) is not friendly to those with high moral standards. The kids manage to escape the slaughter of their family with their innocence intact, but by the end of the second chapter of the game, Amicia has to take one life to save her brother and then another life to save herself. Both of those acts were entirely justifiable, but in her mind, she had blood on her hands, and the game does an okay job of portraying the moral weight of the killings she has to commit to keep herself and her brother alive.

However, as the game progresses, killing gets easier for Amicia. There are times when she (or rather, the player controlling her) kills guards because it's easier and safer than trying to sneak away from them without killing them. And there are times when the kills, avoidable or otherwise, are not as quick and clean as a slung stone to the head. After a certain point in the game, one of the strongest weapons in Amicia's arsenal is the ability to douse the flames of lanterns that keep the rats at bay, allowing the rats to eat enemy soldiers alive. These kills should be harrowing for Amicia, but I didn't get the impression that they bothered her any more than killing guards quickly did. And worse yet, by the end of the game, under Amicia's direction, Hugo uses his rat-controlling powers against dozens of guards, with neither child showing any psychological or emotional effects from that.

Judging by the name of the game, I had hoped that A Plague Tale: Innocence would have explored the idea of innocence and given the player the option and the incentive to maintain it, or to at least explore the consequences of not doing so, but by the end of the game, the idea of innocence is all but forgotten, and the children seem willing to kill guards, not because they have to, but because it's easier than trying not to. Perhaps that, itself, is a consequence of losing one's innocence. Having had to kill guards to save their own lives, perhaps the characters became desensitized to killing, and the game is trying to serve as a cautionary tale against the desensitization caused by a loss of innocence. Yet, if that was the game's intent, that meaning didn't seem very clear to me. It seemed to me that the children killed their way to the villain of the story, killed him, and then went on their merry way as though nothing had happened. I understand that people like happy endings, but people also like realistic stories, and, realistically, those children should have been traumatized by the lives they had taken.

Taking a life carries a heavy moral weight. Even when the killing is perfectly justified and completely necessary,  a person doesn't just shrug it off, especially when the death is brutal, long, and obviously painful. The game started well, showing the moral weight of even justified, necessary, quick, clean kills. But then the kids got the power, both magical and non-magical, to sick rats on other people, and they used that power without any apparent moral repercussions.

A Plague Tale: Innocence could have been great. It could have been a tragic story of unfortunate children forced, through no fault of their own, into a desperate situation in which they had to take desperate measures to survive. The game could have explored the effects their situation would have had on them and on their relationship with each other. The game could have given moral weight to every human life, even the lives of the enemy guards, by showing the toll all those killings must have (and should have) taken on the protagonists' young minds. I'd hate to see children, even fictional children, traumatized by being forced to kill others, but I also hated seeing so many killings go completely unacknowledged. There should have been some consequences. And, preferably, there should have been another way to get to the main villain besides having all his guards eaten by rats. The game had started as a stealth game. There should have been a way to get through the last chapter of the game using stealth.

But I think I'm done complaining about A Plague Tale: Innocence. I've said my peace. I just wish it had ended differently, especially since it had started so well. I would have loved for the themes and mechanics of the game to stay consistent over the whole course of the game. And I would have liked for there to have been some moral weight to the characters' actions. A kid shouldn't be able to kill countless people with magical rat powers and then just run around like a normal kid three days later. Those deaths should have meant something. All lives do.

The Bitter Cup

In his recent Conference talk, in addition to speaking of Jesus as The Lamb of God,  Elder Holland also spoke of the Sacrament and its connection to The Atonement of Jesus Christ. Elder Holland said,

Brothers and sisters, this hour ordained of the Lord is the most sacred hour of our week. By commandment, we gather for the most universally received ordinance in the Church. It is in memory of Him who asked if the cup He was about to drink could pass, only to press on because He knew that for our sake it could not pass. It will help us if we remember that a symbol of that cup is slowly making its way down the row toward us at the hand of an 11- or 12-year-old deacon.

Until I heard this, I hadn't seen the connection between the sacramental cup of water and the bitter cup our Savior drank for our sakes. Of course, I knew the Sacrament represented The Atonement, but I didn't really think about what it meant to drink the cup. I admit that it could mean different things for different people. For me, partaking of the Sacrament used to mean repenting and accepting the Atonement. It used to be as simple as wanting to let go of my sins. Yet, now I think the Sacrament means more to me than that. Yes, partaking of the Sacrament still symbolizes repentance in my mind, but I think it now also represents the sacrifice of our Savior and our willingness to make whatever sacrifices we have to in order to repent of our sins.

Repentance requires great sacrifice, on both the Lord's part and ours. Jesus drank His bitter cup. Are we willing to drink ours?