Pure in Heart

Today, Red from Overly Sarcastic Productions, a YouTube channel I follow, posted a video about the trope of characters who are Pure in Heart, and the thing is, apart from newborns and fictional characters, I'm not sure anybody is or can be that pure. Sure, people can be good, but nobody is perfect. We all have some darkness in our hearts. Everyone gets tempted, and everyone occasionally gives in to temptation. None of us are completely pure in heart.

Yet, I imagine that we might become pure in heart. Through the power of the Atonement, we can be cleansed, sanctified, and perhaps even purified. And, through our righteousness and our presence in the Celestial Kingdom, we can remain pure and free from temptation, for if only the righteous are allowed to enter the Celestial Kingdom, there will be no impure being there to tempt us.

Very few people on Earth are pure in heart, and no one who lives long remains pure, but through our faith and faithfulness and the grace and Atonement of Christ, we can become pure in heart and remain perfectly pure forever.

To Stomp on a Hedgehog

Twitter user Jess Tholmer once wrote, "you can never ban abortion, you can only ban safe abortions." But frankly, there's a part of me that's okay with that.

If a person decided to stomp on a hedgehog, I think there would be a certain amount of justice if that person's foot got injured by hedgehog quills. Animals have a right to defend themselves. People have a right to defend themselves. If a mugger tried to stab you dead in an alley, you would be completely justified in stabbing them back, or perhaps putting them at risk of accidentally stabbing themselves.

Granted, my philosophy relies on the idea that fetuses are human, or at least that they deserve at least as much moral consideration as animals. Yet, I don't think that's a bold claim to make. If a pregnant woman is murdered, it counts as a double-homicide. Killing a woman and her unborn child is counted as killing two people, not one person and a clump of cells.

And yet, even if we take it as a given that abortion is murder, I'm not completely certain that banning safe abortions is a morally justified decision. If the goal is to reduce human suffering, and if the mother is determined to kill the child one way or another, then wouldn't the most moral decision be to make the procedure as painless as possible, for both the mother and the child? What good does it do to jam a woman's foot full of quills if the hedgehog is going to get stomped to death either way? Wouldn't it be better to give the woman heavy, spiked, quill-proof boots, so she can remain uninjured and the hedgehog's death can be quick?

Ultimately, I'm still against abortion. I still consider it murder. It is an unprovoked, unjustified ending of an innocent, human life. And, even given the desire to reduce human suffering as much as possible, I'm not sure I mind giving the innocent one more layer of protection against their would-be killers. Then again, if a person is so desperate to escape a pregnancy that they'd literally stab themselves to do it, then that person needs help, not a knife in the gut. We should help the people whose situations are so unfortunate that they're willing to consider abortion. Still, even so, I'd rather pay for counselling than safe abortions. If a person wants to stomp on a hedgehog, I'd rather give them counseling than quill-proof boots.

If a person wants an abortion, they clearly need help, but rather than help them do the deed, I'd rather help them not want to.

Masters of Our Own Fates

We are each the masters of our own fates. At least, we are if we choose to be. Some people believe that our lives are determined entirely by the circumstances of our birth. Where we are born, when, how, and to whom all shape our lives significantly, as does our upbringing, but as soon as we become capable of making decisions, we begin to become capable of shaping our destinies.

While our births determine our starting positions, our choices determine where we go from there. Every choice we make is a step in one direction or another. After a lifetime, followed by an eternity, of making choices, we ultimately determine where we end up, regardless of where we started.

Granted, some steps are smaller than others and some choices are harder to make than others, and our starting point can have a profound effect on where we ultimately end up, whether by encouraging us to stay close or by driving us to get far away. Still, we ultimately choose where we end up by choosing which direction we go in from wherever we started. We may be born on a beach, but if we choose to walk inland and uphill, we may ultimately end up on a mountaintop.

They say that fate isn't something we can control, that fate is just something that randomly happens to us, influenced by forces beyond our control. But some of the forces that influence fate are entirely within our control. Every choice we make has an influence on our ultimate fate. Destiny is our decision. If we can master ourselves and our own choices, we can be the masters or our own fates.

Different Paths

We all must walk different paths in life. There are many reasons for this.

For one thing, we all start in different places, thus the directions we follow to get where we're going will need to be different, at least at the start.

For another thing, people have different capabilities. A person who is driving might have a different route than a person who is riding a bike. A person who takes buses and trains will have a different route than a person who travels on foot.

Some people have different destinations in mind. If you're going to the local library, then your path will differ greatly from someone who's going to the grocery store.

And people have different preferences. Some people would take the fastest route, while others might prefer a more scenic route.

Some people may want or need to make stops along the way, and they may make different stops, even than those who are. for the most part, on the same path.

Every person on Earth is walking a different path than every other person on Earth. Even those who try to follow the same path as others will find that they need to make different detours than those of the people they're following. Meanwhile, other people are on different paths altogether.

When navigating our paths in life, it's impossible to follow anyone else's footprints exactly. Rather, it's best to learn how to navigate for ourselves, to learn how to determine where we want to go and what path we need to follow to get there. We all need to learn how to be our own pathfinders, because, whether we want to be or not, we are all on different paths.

The Staggering Gift of Agency

I've been thinking about the staggering gift of agency. We have been given the gift of agency, the ability to make choices. It is our responsibility to make choices, and those choices are ours to make. No one can make them for us. The amount of freedom we have to make our own decisions is both comforting and discomforting to me. I'm grateful to have freedom, but with that freedom comes the responsibility to make decisions, and decision-making can be hard. Thankfully, I have people who believe in me and in my ability to make good decisions, and that makes my decision-making a little easier.

The ability and responsibility to make choices can be overwhelming, but with the right amount of support, it is possible to responsibly bear the burden of this staggering gift.

Us VS The Problem

I've heard that the best way for two people to resolve a conflict is together. If two people have a problem with each other, they should try not to see the conflict as the two of them being against each other, but as the two of them working together against the problem. If you and I have a problem with each other, we shouldn't fight against each other; we should work together to solve, or at least minimize, the problem. Rather than seeing anyone as an adversary, I'd rather see people as potential allies against whatever problems we may have, even the problems we have are with each other.

People aren't perfect, and we're bound to make mistakes and decisions that create problems for each other, but that doesn't mean the we, ourselves, become problems for each other. Rather than seeing each other as sources of problems, we can see each other as potential sources for solutions. We can work with each other, rather than against each other, to find solutions to the true problems.

Rewards for Righteousness

This afternoon, I watched a video about motivation and how some motivating factors can accidentally be counterproductive. For example, if someone is offered a reward in return for doing a certain kind of behavior, that might encourage them to develop that kind of behavior, but they might only be motivated to do it so long as there's a sufficient reward involved. If the rewards stop coming or start failing to satisfy, the behavior may stop as well.

That may be part of the reason why the blessing of being righteous don't always come within this lifetime. If they did, people might act righteous, but only for the reward, which kind of undermines the whole idea of becoming righteous. God wants us to choose to be righteous because we're righteous people, not because we are being or will be rewarded for it.

Perhaps that's why most of the rewards of righteousness and punishments for wickedness don't happen in this life. Rewards and punishments can be somewhat motivating, but they shouldn't be our only motivators. We should be righteous for the sake of being righteous, not for the sake of a reward.