My Walk Through The Garden

On this, my latest excursion to the mountain I am bound to raise some eyebrows. My mind is a jumble of emotions and thoughts and theories that I have to somehow sort through to make a coherent and concise essay. As I lay brooding out on the grass in the sweltering sun yesterday over recent choices I had made concerning dating, I found myself experiencing what I can only describe as a "Siddharthean catharsis." Much like Hermann Hesse's title character, I had embarked upon a journey; a journey that was all I could think of, and yet who's motives stayed cloaked from my consciousness--only the inner me knew the whole story, and only in the epilogue did the true plot come into light. Now, Siddhartha searched for Nirvana, and I....? I realize only now what I was looking for, what I am still looking for: salvation. Albeit in a roundabout way. Let me try and explain from this soup of thoughts and emotions that are sloshing around inside of me.

From almost the first moment we read of the creation of the human being, the Gods pose a most important question: "Is it good for Man to be alone?" The answer came, seemingly immediate and without doubt: "It is not good for Man to be alone." If this is true, and our Creators were correct in their assessment, then one must beg the question as he stands at life's crossroad: "Why is it so hard then?"

For those who have been steady stalkers of my Facebook page of late, some pretty interesting developments must have crossed the radar. As an aside, I think I hate Facebook. It gives me the sorta vibe that I'm somehow doing drugs or something because it's not really helping me become a better person, but rather satiates the need in me to "gossip and be gossiped." The thrill of becoming "Facebook official" is quickly replacing what used to be getting pinned for our grandparents, or going steady for our parents. It's out there, loud and proud, with a Siren's song to boot: "Comment on Spencer's changed relationship status." How can one resist? The urge to support, jeer, or (my personal favorite) "give advice" is almost too much for most to handle. At least I can speak from personal experience. Damned if the couple doesn't know that their hooking up sends me into fits of "lol's" and "tee hee's."

Anyway, I digress. For the Facebook aware among us, I'm sure the the words "Spencer's in a relationship and it's complicated" fired a few synapses. I know it did mine. But as I pondered more and more the tag "it's complicated," I began to question myself. "Aren't they all, though?"

I mean to say, aren't all relationships balancing on the edge? Oh, things may be fine on the outside; we're friends, we like each other's company, we're attracted to each other, our friends and/or family are supporting us. But underneath the surface there are complications, questions if you will. "Am I in love with this person? Really?; Where does the emotional love stop and the physical love start?; What if they don't wait for me to come home/come back/or just plain come around?; Are they honestly good for me, or am I afraid or unable to say no?; Can I really see myself marrying this person (and if you're a Latter-Day Saint, you could say 'Spend Eternity with this person?')" If these questions or others don't arise in the background somewhere, then go and marry them. If you can't, then I rest my case.

Now, I'm not naive enough to suggest that all problems must be fixed and all wrinkles ironed out before marriage; I know of no more potent time of emotional ups and downs than the that of leading up to a wedding. But I believe that before you can say "yes" at the altar, you should be able to answer--at least to some extent, with certainty--the questions above that you deem most important. It's because of these questions (and many many more) that saw my Facebook status going from Relationship to Single to Relationship to having no relationship status posted at all.

All this vacillation only illustrates all the more sharply the question I posed at the beginning, "Why are relationships so hard?" Why is it hard to fall in love and to stay in love, and why is it so difficult when you fall out of love, or end a relationship? Taking it one step further, why is marriage so difficult? I thought love conquered all..... These answers are hard to come by, but I offer this epiphany:

As far as I can tell, Love and Marriage and Relationships are so difficult because when you get to be older it becomes not only a question of company vs. solitude, but rather a question of salvation. We in the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints believe in "Salvation," or the freeing from spiritual and physical bonds brought upon us by our lost and fallen state. With this interpretation in mind, all of God's children will one day be "saved," and like the Nephites before us, we can already count ourselves as such due to the merits and mercies of a loving Atoner. But those of us who have their eyes on the big "W," Exaltation and Godhood, realize that there really is no Salvation without Exaltation.

This term "No Salvation without Exaltation" has been used by apostles and prophets for decades now to underscore the importance of our end goal as a species and as children of a loving Heavenly Father, as well as the utter essentialness of marriage. Elder Bruce R. McConkie often said that "there is no greater thing that can be done in this world than to marry the right person, in the right place, under the right authority." And in a nutshell that's the reason dating and love can give us so much grief. Nothing can hoodwink the process of dating and praying and evaluating who is right for us because everything depends on it for Exaltation. Thus, we have numberless statements from prophets to young people everywhere that finding a spouse is the number one priority.

With this viewpoint before us, I am reminded of a talk--now famous--given by Elder Jeffrey R. Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. This talk is circulated amongst the missionaries at the MTC, and I think I heard it quoted no less than 800 times on my mission. He asks the question "Why is this so difficult?" and answers it (I'm paraphrasing): "I have thought long and hard about this, and it is my believe that missionary work is hard--" Notice he could have easily said dating, or marriage, "because Salvation is not a cheap experience. For one who suffered on Calvary's cross it was anything but easy. Why should it be easy for us?" He goes on. "Not to undermine the immeasurable pain our Savior felt in Gethsemane, I say we all must take a walk through the Garden and sweat a few drops of blood before we can truly know Him who did it all, and earn the prize."

There you have it. As crude as it may sound, the pain of love is a schoolmaster, a Gethsemane of sorts. Our Father in Heaven is all-knowing and loving beyond measure, but I believe that He employs a little tough love when the situation calls for it; not to torture us, but to help us rely on Him and turn to Him with our heartaches and our problems. He has given us a promise through his modern day prophets that everyone will be given a chance (or two or three or seventy times seven) to receive all the blessings of Exaltation through marriage. What we must do is hold fast to those promises, remembering that "a man cannot be saved in ignorance" and that "all things shall give thee experience."

On my mission I came across people who were so convinced that Salvation was nothing more than the confessing of Christ as our Savior, or the performance of good works. Through study and prayer I've come to learn that Salvation is extremely multi-faceted. We must confess Christ, pray always, repent in godly sorrow, do good works, obtain the blessings of the Priesthood, magnify our callings, and make eternal covenants. Like repentance, salvation isn't an event, but a process. As Nephi describes in the Book of Mormon, once we partake of the fruit we can't allow ourselves to wander forbidden paths; we must stay near "the tree" and honor our marriage forever. Only that path leads to Exaltation and thus, Salvation.

In the crucible of my trials and aware of one who weeps for me, I am comforted by this fact: that despite the almost unbearable pain love (and the loss thereof) can cause, I know that it is all for a wise purpose in Him who's business I strive to be about. The cleaner our motives and the stronger our faith, our trials will carve within us receptacles of love and empathy that will eventually lead us to that moment when we gaze on our loved ones in those temple mirrors that reflect onto eternity and forget the pains we thought would never pass.

Yes, many of us are in a relationship, and they are all of them complicated. The tears of loss stain the pillows of more than one person I know, and I can't think of a person who doesn't ask the hard questions about their potential in finding a spouse. But I know that God is mindful of a failed relationship just as much as a fallen sparrow; for both knew the sensation of how it was to fly.