As I was organizing my blog to make it more reader friendly and accessible, I stumbled across the draft of this posting. It is a paper I wrote for the Five Pillar class, and is very, very long. Please skip it unless you are really interested in my take on this hugely transformative book/experience I had.
WARNING FROM THE SURGEON GENERAL: the following is very, very long :). However it was something of a personal growing, personal evaluating experience, so I have chosen to preserve it in its entirety...word-y-ness and all :).
Finding my way in the pages of Walden–
"And may I say, it made all the difference"
written August 2005
I am an ofttimes frantic mother of eight children, continually yearning towards the bright future where socks never lose their match, the Sunday lesson doesn’t offend a soul, my children parade about as models of my amazing parenting, I never once raise my voice in anger, and my "free time" is filled with painting and learning the mystical science of sewing. This was my goal before I encountered Henry David Thoreau's Walden. I find my previous views of success changing as I read "Walden". He inspires me to simplify, start from where I am at, look to classics and nature for a true education, and ultimately share what I learn with others as I apply the true principles I discover in the process. Although his methods are extreme and some of his arguments don't fit with my personal beliefs, I still find his insights valid, particularly for modern society, full of it’s whistles, bells, and other distractions.
Before I can begin to work on the changes I feel are so desperately needed to slow down and simplify, I find myself needing to analyze my starting point, emotionally and physically. I feel so often like the people Thoreau describes: "The twelve labors of Hercules were trifling in comparison with those which my neighbors have undertaken; for they were only twelve and had an end; but I could never see that these men slew or captured any monster or finished any labor...as soon as one head is crushed, two spring up." (Walden1, pg 2) I pack my days with endless "to dos", never satisfied that I am done. I tend to thrive upon the approval and wonder of others who are "amazed at all I am able to accomplish". I also secretly nurture the belief that exhausting my resources daily in good works is key to my progression towards perfection. An account in the Ensign June of 2005 captures my situation perfectly. Kelli Allen-Pratt writes: "I woke up each morning and prayed that I could accomplish everything on my ‘"to do" list, only to be discouraged as I dropped into bed after midnight...I was plain overburdened with what I required of myself...I was trying to force my family to meet my expectations, to make them do exactly what I wanted. I couldn’t even match my own expectations." (Pg 64)
As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I find great comfort in my religion. As part of my ideally daily routine I find solace and direction in the scriptures. Recently I discovered a common theme in particularly meaningful verses, like the ones that follow:
D&C 5:34 Yea, for this cause I have said: Stop, and stand still until I command thee, and I will provide means whereby thou mayest accomplish the thing which I have commanded thee.
D&C 123:17 Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed.
Isaiah 40:31 But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.
Mosiah 4:27: "It is not requisite that a man should run faster than he has strength."
All these scriptures made me realize that the way to strength, the way to achievement, the way to perfection is not one of constant action or mental engagement. These ideas slipped hand-in-glove with the lessons I saw in Thoreau.
Thoreau warns:
"Our life is frittered away by detail...Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity! I say, let your affairs be as two or three, and not a hundred or a thousand...the million households in the land [are] cluttered with furniture and tripped up by [their] own traps, ruined by luxury and heedless expense, by want of calculation and a worthy aim; and the only cure for it as for them is in a rigid economy, a...simplicity of life and elevation of purpose. It lives too fast....Why should we live with such hurry and waste of life? We are determined to be starved before we are hungry." (Walden, pg 59-60)
This is my life, too often too fast! I am particularly affected by that last line, and it makes me wonder: if I truly did everything on my list and my kids have a perfect day (which has happened before, using a personal, loose interpretation of the word "perfect"), would I be satisfied, or would I sigh with dread, determined that I must do the same the next day? Am I, too, determined to be "starved" before I am "hungry"?
As I find myself getting continually caught up in the complexities that life offers, Thoreau put into words a road "less traveled" in this ofttimes hectic world, an unlikely option to my "ball-juggling", perfectionist ideal. This made me think of one of my favorite poems of all time, "The Road Not Taken, by Robert Frost:
THE ROAD NOT TAKEN
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And being one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;
Then took the other, as just as fair,
And having perhaps the better claim,
Because it was grassy and wanted wear;
Though as for that the passing there
Had worn them really about the same,
And both that morning equally lay
In leaves no step had trodden black.
Oh, I kept the first for another day!
Yet knowing how way leads on to way,
I doubted if I should ever come back.
I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I-
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.
This road less traveled? Simplification. I have always yearned to simplify, but worried that if I did that, I would not "get everything done" on my eternal agenda of "self-improvement". However, Thoreau, in Walden seems to claim that I can still gain eternal truths and enjoy progression by simplifying, even gain them more surely!
At first I was skeptical: how could letting go and simplifying enable me to progress to the knowledge of God? Isn’t it supposed to be hard work, requiring my all? However, as I read deeper, I found what I felt to be some of the truths of God in his difficult text, that could potentially help me in the development of my homeschool environment, my children, and myself.
My take home message from Thoreau boils down to three areas: slow down and simplify, start inward with my new changes and then educate myself to help it all stick!
SLOW DOWN AND SIMPLIFY
Thoreau gives us some key concepts to helping me slow down and simplify: examine personal use of time, look to nature, seek forgiveness, lay aside old paths, avoid unnecessary accumulation, attain a true sense of present reality and go from there.
Examine personal use of time
The first concept I find myself confronting in my efforts to "get back to basics" is the task-master of time. Time, time, time...the never-ending pre-occupation of our mortal existence. Yet as we simplify our endeavors, eliminating time as an all-important standard in our days, we become the master of it ourselves. "Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in . I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains."(Pg 64) Time is not as all-powerful as we make it out to be. Although it stretches out before us, it is shallow. We can live our lives relatively free of its constraints, looking to it on occasion for its usefulness in providing a loose structure whereby to gage our days.
We have stewardship over time in this life. In D&C 72:3 we read: "it is required of the Lord, at the hand of every steward, to render an account of his stewardship, both in time and in eternity. For he who is faithful and wise in time is accounted worthy to inherit the mansions prepared for him of my Father." In the eternities, God lives in an eternal "Now"; but according to His wisdom, He has placed us here within time’s constraints. I feel its role is to provide structure, but also to give us the opportunity to master it and look past it’s limitations. God enables our abilities to expand beyond the constraints of time, both through our personal efforts and the ofttimes "saving grace" of another’s intercession. Whether we limit ourselves by the perceived time allotted to us, obsess over time so that it preoccupies the majority of our day, or disregard it altogether we need to take a closer look at the role of "time" in our lives.
First we need to evaluate our use of time. Can we "kill time without injuring eternity" (pg 4)? Can we be so driven in the interest of time that we lose sight of the end goal, not to mention at the expense of the moment? "Why should we be in such desperate haste to succeed, and in such desperate enterprises? ...It is not important that [we] should mature as soon as an apple tree or an oak. Shall [we] turn [our] spring into summer? If the conditions of things which we were made for is not yet, what were any reality which we can substitute?" (Pg 210) I find myself worriedly examining how I spend every minute--whether worthy or not, perfect or not--and weighing myself in the balance. This leads me to not value the time I have before me, preoccupied by the imperfectness of my existence. Thoreau states: " I did not wish to live what was not life, living is so dear; nor did I wish to practise resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life." (Pg 59) Living is dear and is needlessly wasted with worry and headlong eagerness to get everything done now.
In a personal example, in the past I taught a cooking class--which, incidentally, I felt inspired to do. I prepared for it diligently, and--eager to "validate" the $30 required to participate-- packed the first few sessions with everything I could. I wore out myself, and am not completely convinced that the excess activities improved the experience. As I write my paper on Walden, it occurs to me that I feel similarly with my stewardship as a mother. Not only do I seek to "validate" keeping my children home through homeschooling, but also to "validate" that I am competent to raise all these children, and to "validate" my membership in my church with all the blessings that God showers upon me. Perhaps I even seek to qualify motherhood as a noble and worthwhile calling to those who work, or call for extra activities outside of the home. I weigh myself continually against my eternal ideal, shunning my current self in light of the perfect woman I strive to be. However, in life, as in the smaller case of my cooking class, running full-speed, full-throttle is not always the most effective way to do things, and definitely not the most enjoyable!
We need to appreciate the time and experiences we have allotted to us. As Thoreau puts it "worst of all when you are the slave-driver of yourself" (pg 4) for that complicates life, not allowing us to look at the gifts of the moments...for of such is life composed. "Life is a journey, not a destination," as the popular quote chides. At the Relief Society open house, Spring 2005, Sister Parkin related the following story:
"One sister, Joan, was struggling with cancer and believed she was close to death. But she felt she hadn’t done enough, felt she was unworthy, unready to die. As she sent up silent prayers of remorse for her inadequacy and shortcomings, what came back to her was a sweet, calm assurance that she was enough. The Lord impressed upon her that the daily, weekly, monthly assignments–like family home evening, scripture study and prayer, visiting teaching, and temple attendance–that she was using to measure her work and worthiness were actually gifts, gifts from Him for her to take advantage of, to help her, to bless her, not whips to beat herself with.
"The Lord loves us so much that He has given us wonderful aids to help us better ourselves and bring us closer to Him. We don’t read the scriptures and hold family night and say prayers to check off a list or receive a grade. We do them because they change us, bless us, teach us. We are not loved of the Lord by incremental scorekeeping–65 percent affection in exchange for 65 percent visiting teaching, 30 percent love granted for 30 percent scripture study, 80 percent blessings in answer to 80 daily prayer or temple attendance–we are just loved by the Lord, period. His ability to love us in our imperfection is part of what makes Him the Lord. The more we come to know Him, the more we know He loves us."
As I read "The Littlest Angel" to my children recently, the errors in my perception and judging hit home. The littlest angel presents his little earthly box to the heavenly King as a gift heralding the birth of His Son. When the littlest angel sees his shabby box next to all the "perfect" gifts of heaven, he recoils in shame, and hastens to retrieve his gift. However, the hand of God moves across the pile of gifts to rest on the present of the littlest angel, much to his chagrin. God then expresses his pleasure with the gift for it is of the things of the earth, which His Son will love, and which will be a part of His Son’s experience. Similarly, our experiences–griefs and sorrows, mistakes and embarrassments–are part of this existence, not impediments. They make us who we are (just as our successes do!) by helping us relate to others, thereby making our lives helpful and valuable to our Heavenly Father--imperfect as our failures and inadequacies seem next to the attributes of the heavenly person we see we can become . We need to look at how we are spending our time and decide whether we try to do too much or strive for an unrealistic goal. Let us not "injure eternity" and see value in the present.
We need to stop, look at the memories that are happening all around us, and realize: "There [are] times when [we can] not afford to sacrifice the bloom of the present moment to any work, whether of the head or hands...They [are] not time subtracted from [our lives], but so much over and above [our] usual allowance." (Pg 72-3) As we dwell on the moment, we are standing "on the meeting of two eternities, the past and future" (Pg 10) . As we "toe that line" by savoring the present, we are able to capture the value in both more clearly in our view (ibid). We need to remember that our experiences here in mortality are as much a part of us as the attributes we seek to develop. We need to remember that our experiences--of pain, grief, joy, and sorrow--are so important that the Savior willingly suffered them all, not only that we may not suffer, but that He may know the extreme dimensions of our feelings and know how to empathize, how to solace. In freeing ourselves from guilt or needless busyness, we make room in our lives for more lasting endeavors.
Look to Nature!
One help that God has given us to slow down and evaluate our lives is the ability to "access" Nature. Immersing himself in nature allowed Thoreau to distance himself from the frantic rush of his former life: "My purpose in going to Walden Pond was not to live cheaply nor to live dearly there, but to transact some private business with the fewest obstacles." (Pg 12) In my case, it means a daily immersion in the simple beauty of my own backyard, with its trees, wild flowers, and bird song. When I am outside I feel like Thoreau describes: "This is a delicious evening, when the whole body is one sense, and imbibes delight through every pore. I go and come with a strange liberty in Nature, a part of herself." (Pg 84) When I find myself dwelling on the questions and perplexities of my life, my mind a cauldron of confusion, I sit and simply soak in the beauty around me. I find "an answered question" within "Nature and daylight"(Pg 182). The importance of my frustrations slips away in the face of Nature and her testimony of a bigger picture. "It is surprising and memorable, as well as valuable experience, to be lost in the woods any time...Not till we are lost, in other words, not till we have lost the world, do we being to find ourselves, and realize where we are and the infinite extent of our relations." (Pg 111) A natural, non-synthetic environment somehow exposes a rawer, truer version of ourselves, a self with fewer pretenses. "We need the tonic of wildness,--...At the same time that we are earnest to explore and learn all things, we require that all things be mysterious and unexplorable, that land and sea be infinitely
wild, unsurveyed and unfathomed by us because unfathomable. We can never have enough of Nature. We must be refreshed by the sight of inexhaustible vigor, vast and Titanic features,...We need to witness our own limits transgressed, and some life pasturing freely where we never wander." (Emphasis added, Pg 84) As we view "our limits transgressed" as it were, the pettiness in our lives slips away in the face of God’s power. We are forced to confront "vast and Titanic features" which we cannot create nor control and it brings us back to faith; we more trustingly allow ourselves to be led by that higher power which created such grandeur.
Another outdoor resource we might consider as a tool in "slowing down" is gardening: "When my hoes tinkled against the stones, that music echoed to the woods and the sky, and was an accompaniment to my labor which yielded an instant and immeasurable crop. It was no longer beans that I hoed, nor that I hoed beans." (Pg 103) Am I too caught up in the destination or crop, to not appreciate the journey? The nurturing, tending, and laboring over a garden are a tender example of how we should treat and evaluate our own lives. In the June 2005 Ensign, Rosemarie Deppe shares her grandmother’s reason for having a garden, "You will understand more about God if you tend your garden." She goes on to compare her life to a garden, which has at times been neglected. Working in the garden helped her see the power of the Atonement in her life: "I now realize that I am responsible for my garden–the garden of my life. It takes daily effort to grow closer to the Lord, just as it takes daily effort to keep a garden. Repentance repairs our mistakes, and the Atonement allows us to keep trying. I have learned that the fruits of the Spirit cannot be purchased from a store (just like the home-grown vegetables); we have to grow them ourselves by following Him. I have never forgotten how pleased I was to see those three green beans on that scraggly bush long ago. But more important than saving the plant, I came to understand that the Lord sees someone worth saving in me." (Pg 21)
As we allow ourselves to sense and observe Nature more intimately, our perceptions broaden: "It was very queer, especially in dark nights, when your thoughts had wandered to vast and cosmogonal these in other spheres, to feel this faint jerk, which came to interrupt your dreams and link you to Nature again. It seemed as if I might next cast my line upward into the air, as well as downward into this element which was scarcely more dense. Thus I caught two fishes as it were with one hook. " (Pg 114) In the hymn "O My Father" we find the words"and I felt that I had wandered to a more exalted Sphere" (#292)–it is easier to feel the nearness of heaven in contemplation of the simple beauty of nature. The nearness of heaven, again, restores us in a fresh understanding of our relationship to God and what is truly important in our lives.
Seek Forgiveness
We must confront our faults, and forgive ourselves in order to truly move forward . This enables a fresh start along a new path. God gives us this reminder in the gentle example of a fresh morning: "We should be blessed if we should live in the present always, and took advantage of every accident that befell us,...and did not spend our time in atoning for the neglect of past opportunities, which we call doing our duty. We loiter in winter while it is already spring. In a pleasant spring morning all men’s sins are forgiven. Such a day is a truce to vice....[We] do not obey the hint which God gives [us], nor accept the pardon which he freely offers all."(pg 203) Ahh, the joyous reminder that dawn offers of renewal and cleansing. God is as constant in forgiving us as the sun is in rising! Stephen Covey teaches us that the Savior can help us forgive ourselves: "While the Lord commands our perfection (for he can command nothing less), he allows for our imperfection."(Six Events, pg 81) Similarly the Lord assures us, "Seek ye earnestly the best gifts...for they are given for the benefit of those who love me and keep all my commandments, and him that seeketh so to do." (D&C 46:8-9 Emphasis added) It is sadly ironic that sometimes we feel that we have to be "perfect" before we can "progress".
Lay aside old paths
Hand in hand with forgiving ourselves, we must be willing to recognize faulty or out-dated habits and change them. Thoreau found that "I left the woods for as good a reason as I went there...It is remarkable how easily and insensibly we fall into a particular route, and make a beaten track for ourselves...The surface of the earth is soft and impressible by the feet of men; and so with the paths which the mind travels...How deep the ruts of traditions and conformity!" (Pg 209) It is hard to change our ways, but after careful evaluation of what is needful, determination of purpose will lend us strength.
Employing the power of prayer--welcoming God’s perspective into our lives that we found through simplification and nature--lends us further aid in recognizing obsolete traits or habits: "We esteem ourselves wise, and have an established order on the surface. Truly we are deep thinkers, we are ambitious spirits! As I stand over the insect crawling amid the pine needles on the forest floor,...and ask myself why it will cherish those humble thoughts...I am reminded of the greater Benefactor and Intelligence that stands over me the human insect." (Pg 214) In the Book of Mormon, the prophet Nephi cautions against presumptuous arrogance that keeps us from seeing God’s will in directing our lives: "O the vainness, and the frailties, and the foolishness of men! When they are learned they think they are wise, and they hearken not unto the counsel of God, for they set it aside, supposing they know of themselves, wherefore their wisdom is foolishness and it profiteth them not. But to be learned is good if they hearken unto the counsels of God." (2 Nephi 9:28) Submitting ourselves to God’s ways and changing our ways minds me of a favorite quote of mine: "The Lord has never asked me to sacrifice anything–He has simply asked me to give up an old, comfortable coat for a new and better one."
Avoid unnecessary accumulation
In a world centered around "keeping up with the Jones", it is easy to get caught up in the race for worldly wealth. Thoreau pities those who inherit lands, "more easily acquired than gotten rid of...How many a poor immortal soul have I met well nigh crushed and smothered under its load...[I] find it labor enough to subdue and cultivate a few cubic feet of flesh." (Pg 2) He further comments: "The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation...When we consider what ...is the chief end of man, and what are the true necessities and means of life, it appears as if men had deliberately chosen the common mode of living because they preferred it to any other."(ibid) It is common to value our success and happiness based on our accumulations which we easily parade as a measure of our worth and place in society.
Thoreau makes an interesting point regarding how the Indians devote little labor and cost to their abodes, and yet there are few who are considered poor among them. On the other hand, those of our society labor long and hard to acquire a little shack that is far more than we can afford, and thereafter spend our lives seeking to pay for this abode... "and helps to keep them poor for as long as they live." (Pg 19) He cautions against getting into debt to buy a "bigger & better" house: "He will appear to be harnessed to it...If would surpass the powers of a well man nowadays to take up his bed and walk, and I should certainly advise a sick one to lay down his bed and run...When I have met an immigrant tottering under a bundle which contained his all–...I have pitied him, not because that was his all, but because he had all that to carry." (Pg 43) We allow the decoration and establishment of our house and earthly needs interfere with our contemplation of heaven: "We now no longer camp as for a night, but have settled down on earth and forgotten heaven...Before we can adorn our houses with beautiful objects the walls must be stripped, and our lives must be stripped, and beautiful housekeeping and beautiful living be laid for a foundation: now, a taste for the beautiful is most cultivated out of doors, where there is no house and no housekeeper." (pg 24) Our possessions interfere with our contemplation of heaven.
"Why so large a cost, having so short a lease,
dost thou upon thy fading mansion spend?
Rather than starve thy soul, within be rich,
without be rich no more"
Let us "sell [our] clothes and keep [our] thoughts" (Pg 212) and "as long as possible live free and uncommitted. It makes but little difference whether you are committed to a farm or the county jail." (Pg 55)
It all goes back to the evaluation of appropriate place and purpose. Why do we accumulate things of the world? To make life easier, more simple? Thoreau suggests: "With a hundred ‘modern improvements’, there is an illusion about them; ...Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things. They are but improved means to an unimproved end...We are in great haste to construct a magnetic telegraph from Maine to Texas; but Maine and Texas, it may be, have nothing important to communicate."(Pg 33-34) This is followed with the analogy of traveling to Fitchburg..."I have learned that the swiftest traveller is he that goes afoot...I should think that I should keep ahead of you; and as for seeing the country and getting experience of that kind, I should have to cut your acquaintance altogether." We need to not get so caught up in wasting the moment in pursuance of future things that don’t have a true purpose and don’t satisfy the purpose for which they were acquired. This concept is embodied in the modern concept of retirement: "This spending of the best part of one’s life earning money in order to enjoy a questionable liberty during the least valuable part of it." (Ibid) How many people have felt trapped in the all-consuming debt of an over-large mortgage, and longed for the simplicity of a debt-free life!
Freeing our lives from excessive accumulations allows us to dwell on the things of the soul, thus enabling us to feed our mind and souls, for "money is not required to buy one necessary of the soul." (Pg 213) The scriptures caution that where our treasure is, there will our hearts lie also. Thoreau comments " Men have come to such a pass that they frequently starve, not for want of necessaries, but for want of luxuries." (Pg 40) Having set aside his own earthly goods, Thoreau felt "rich, if not in money, in sunny hours and summer days, and spent them lavishly; nor do I regret that I did not waste more of them in the workshop of the teacher’s desk." (Pg 125) What a thief Regret is, stealing our appreciation, our happiness, our right to be content!
Attain a true sense of present reality and go from there
One of the most impacting paragraphs in this book is what I like to call the "experiment paragraph":
"Let us spend one day as deliberately as Nature, and not be thrown off the track by every nutshell and mosquito’s wing that falls on the rails. Let us rise early and fast, or break fast, gently and without perturbation; let company come and let company go, let the bells ring and the children cry–determined to make a day of it...Let us not be upset and overwhelmed in that terrible rapid and whirlpool called a dinner...Weather this danger and you are safe, for the rest of the way is down hill...If the engine whistles, let it whistle till it is hoarse for its pains. If the bell rings, why should we run?...Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud and slush of opinion , and prejudice, and traction, and delusion, and appearance, that alluvion which covers the globe,...till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality, and say, This is, and no mistake." (Pg 63)
Letting the bells ring unanswered is a powerful idea. We often conceive in our minds how we believe a day should proceed and then hold everything that happens in a day against that standard, thereby judging our success or failure. While it is good to lay out a plan and direction, over time if we don’t perform a very real "reality check", we set ourselves up for failure with unrealistic expectations.
I found my own Walden one day, as my life rapidly acquired more and more tasks in it’s typically down-hill, run-away fashion. That particular day I let the bells ring, I let the children cry– trying to recognize perhaps what their true frustrations and problems were, not simply passing judgement in light of my own expectations and preconceived notions. We went to our"duck park", sat and observed Nature, and I began to see my children in a new light, based perhaps more on their progressing personalities and needs. I hurried for nothing, did nothing in haste– with the only exception being the time my two year old made rapid haste for the raging Jordan River! The overall experience was mind-opening and expanding. I saw my life from what I felt was a more accurate angle: "surprisingly" my children don’t naturally read my thoughts or anticipate my requests; my house naturally drifts towards entropy; and perhaps most importantly, I do not always know the best way to do things or have all the answers–nor should I. I learned many lessons that day, and greatly reduced the stress in my life by removing some impractical beliefs.
Stephen Covey suggests: "If you want to make small improvements in your life, change your behavior. Change your attitude. If you want to make quantum improvements, change your paradigm, your map. In other words, begin to look at life and the world from an entirely different level of thinking. Then and only then will behavior and attitude become important." (Six Events, pg 10) We need this paradigm shift offered through a "reality check" as a better basis for evaluating our lives.
II. START INWARD!
Once we have simplified our lives, removing the various impediments to our progression, we may commence down the road to self-improvement less over-burdened. We cannot make lasting changes in our lives, however, unless we are willing to start within ourselves. Sister Allen-Pratt comments: "I believe happiness comes from striving for a better understanding of ourselves." (Ensign, June 2005, pg 67) Thoreau put this idea into elegant poetry:
"Direct your eye sight inward, and you’ll find
A thousand regions in your mind
Yet undiscovered. Travel them, and be
Expert in home-cosmography." (Pg 207)
He challenges us to "be a Columbus to whole new continents and worlds within you, opening new channels, not of trade, but of thought." (Pg 207). It makes sense that since our natures are eternal, there is an endless opportunity for exploration and growth within ourselves.
Believe!
We must believe that we have power to change our lives. Thoreau encouragingly states: "I know of no more encouraging fact than the unquestionable ability of man to elevate his life by a conscious endeavor...To affect the quality of the day, that is the highest of arts. Every man is tasked to make his life, even in its details, worthy of the contemplation of his most elevated and critical hour." (Pg 59) We are accountable to use our talents, as in the parable of Christ, for the bettering of ourselves and others: "Every man is the builder of a temple, called his body, to the god he worships, after a style purely his own...We are all sculptors and painters, and our material is our own flesh and blood and bones. Any nobleness begins at once to refine a man’s features, any meanness or sensuality to imbrute them." (Pg 144) We have the capacity to confront ourselves and our potential destinies, and choose our path: "Men should be anxiously engaged in a good cause, and do many things of their own free will, and bring to pass much righteousness; For the power is in them, wherein they are agents unto themselves. And inasmuch as men do good they shall in nowise lose their reward." (D&C 58:27-28) We are not victims of circumstance, we are determinants of destiny.
We will always be faced with a choice..."there is never and instant’s truce between virtue and vice." (Pg. 141) Some may contend that they are ambivalent about our purposes here in life, and would rather simply "coast along". However, experience proves that we all have "an animal in us, which awakens in proportion as our higher nature slumbers." (Pg 142) There is no sitting still–we are always improving one side of our natures or another. Thoreau amusingly quips: "Why level downward to our dullest perception always, and praise that as common sense? The commonest sense is the sense of men asleep, which they express by snoring." (Pg 210) Prophets concur with Thoreau, that "goodness is the only investment that never fails."(Pg. 141) In Isaiah 57:21 we find: "There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked." When we feel the fruits of that goodness, our spirit yearns for it: "It appeared ..to me that...men remain in their present low and primitive condition; but if they could feel the influence of the spring of springs arousing them, they would of necessity rise to a higher and more ethereal life."(Pg 26) A vision of our ability and hopes enable us to activate the power within ourselves to improve and change.
Tools
As in the great quests of hero-adventures, we must have certain elements in our quest for lasting, eternal goodness. We need virtue, like a cloak or shield, which will protect us and keep us constant to our resolves. " The virtues of a superior man are like the wind; the virtues of a common man are like the grass; the grass, when the wind passes over it, bends." (Pg 112) Thoreau compares the harvesting to virtue with his work in the field:
"I said to myself, I will not plant beans and corn with so much industry another summer, but such seeds...as sincerity, truth, simplicity, faith, innocence, and the like and see if they will not grow in this soil, even with less manurance, and sustain me,...Why concern ourselves so much about our beans for seed, and not be concerned at all about a new generation of men? We should really be fed and cheered if when we met a man we were sure to see that some of the qualities which I have named, which we all prize more than those other productions...had taken root and grown in him...We should never cheat and insult and banish one another by our meanness, if there were present the kernel of worth and friendliness" (Pg 106-7)
We work so hard to construct our superficial successes, but by starting with simple virtues, we weather the difficulties and feel more lasting success: "Nations are possessed with an insane ambition to perpetuate the memory of themselves by the amount of hammered stone they leave. What if equal pains were taken to smooth and polishing their manners? One piece of good sense would be more memorable than a monument as high as the moon...Most of the stone a nation hammers goes toward its tomb only. It buries itself alive...it costs more than it comes to." (Pg 37) Again, we may not "kill time" in corruptible endeavors without "injuring eternity".
Faith gives us a source of direction, whether we have faith in ourselves, our God, or others around us. We need to determine whom we rely upon and seek from them a direction. Obviously not everyone is the same, with the same mission. Even Thoreau concedes, "There never was and is not likely soon to be a nation of philosophers, nor am I certain it is desirable that there should be."(pg 36) However, we all need to go out daily with purpose and intention, and faith lends us this purpose: "Men come tamely home at night...and their life pines because it breathes its own breath over again; their shadows morning and evening reach farther than their daily steps. We should come home from far, from adventures, and perils, and discoveries every day, with new experience and character." (Pg 135)
We must determine what we should do by the light of truth "No face which we can give to a matter will stead us so well at last as the truth. This alone wears well." (Pg 211) In the Doctrine and Covenants section 50, God tells us how to recognize this truth: "by the Comforter, in the Spirit of truth...doth he receive it....It if be some other way it is not of God." (Verses 17-20) Truth is lasting, and will give us proper discernment in our quest for eternal progression. "Rather than love, than money, than fame, give me truth. I sat at a table where were rich food and wine in abundance, and obsequious attendance, but sincerity and truth were not; and I went away hungry from the inhospitable board." (Pg 214) When so much is changeable and unreliable in the world of philosophies and teachings of men, it is good to know what is reliable and unchangeable.
We need determination just as we must have victuals to sustain us in our quest for what is good. Nothing which is lasting will be easy, although we may make it as simple and uncomplicated as we can. We must look at our path forward, and not allow ourselves to be impeded by what Stephen Covey terms "the scarcity mentality": "A "scarcity mentality" is the tendency to define oneself in terms of being better than, or not as good as, another person. It involves the idea that there is only so much to go around, as if there were only one pie out there, and if someone gets a big piece of the pie, that means there is less for everyone else."(Six Events, pg 55) It is easy to make excuses, feeling that somehow we are less able because we "have less of the pie." This mentality adversely affects our determination.
Thoreau puts it a bit differently:
"Some are dinning in our ears that we Americans, and moderns generally, are intellectual dwarfs compared with the ancients, or even the Elizabethan men. But what is that to the purpose? A living dog is better than a dead lion. Shall a man go and hang himself because he belongs to the race of pygmies, and not be the biggest pygmy that he can? Let every one mind his own business and endeavor to be what he was made." (Pg 211)
Thoreau encouragingly enjoinders: "However mean your life is, meet it and live it; do not shun it and call it hard names. It is not so bad as you are. It looks poorest when you are richest. The fault-finder will find faults even in paradise. Love your life, poor as it is. You may perhaps have some pleasant, thrilling, glorious hours, even in a poor-house. The setting sun is reflected from the windows of the alms-house as brightly as from the rich man’s abode." (Emphasis added, Pg 212) We must push past our "scarcity mentalities", determined to make the best out of our lives in order to succeed and not simply wallow in our excuses.
We will invariably confront difficulties, which, again, we must face with determination: "I got only labor for my pains. However, in this case my pains were their own reward." (Pg 11). Moroni warns us that we should "dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith."(see Ether 12:6) The Lord promises us: "Ye cannot behold with your natural eyes, for the present time, the design of your God...For after much tribulation come the blessings." (D&C 58: 3-4) Prophets throughout the scriptures continually admonish us to endure to the end, although the enduring may not always be pleasant.
Our determination of purpose will aid us in the inevitably lonely times: "I would not stand between any man and his genius; and to him who does this work, which I decline, with his whole heart and soul and life, I would say, Persevere, even if the world call it doing evil, as it is most likely they will." (Pg. 48) Just because we are doing things differently than others, we must realize: "If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer. Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away." (Pg 210) It is at this point where the tools of virtue, truth and faith lend us confidence and increase our determination.
Thoreau has a refreshingly optimistic outlook on the value of being alone in our purpose and vision:
"I would rather sit on a pumpkin and have it all to myself, rather than be crowded on a velvet cushion. I would rather ride on earth in an ox cart with a free circulation, than go to heaven in the fancy car of an excursion train and breath a malaria all the way." (pg 23)
On a more serious note he states:
"If we would enjoy the most intimate society with that in each of us which is without, or above, being spoken to, we must not only be silent, but commonly so far apart bodily that we cannot possibly hear each other’s voice in any case." (Pg. 91)
"I never found the companion that was so companionable as solitude. We are for the most part more lonely when we go abroad among men than when we stay in our chambers. A man thinking or working is always alone, let him be where he will." (Pg 88)
I find this last quote particularly true. If we live sincerely, we will live "in distant lands" from even those closest to us, for who truly understands completely what passages, what trails, lie in the heart and soul of another being? It is not selfish to pursue our mission, if the Holy Ghost testifies to us of its importance and direction as outlined in the previous steps. We must experience things independently and then share the value of them with others: "I should not talk so much about myself if there were any body else whom I knew as well. Unfortunately, I am confined to this theme by the narrowness of my experience." (Pg 1) It goes back to the idea of how valuable we are, with our individual weaknesses and successes.
By working independently we are less encumbered to conform to someone else’s agenda and timing:
"The man who goes alone can start to-day; but he who travels with another must wait till that other is ready, and it may be a long time before they get off...The youth may build or plant or sail, only let him not be hindered from doing that which he tells me he would like to do. It is by a mathematical point only that we are wise, as the sailor or the fugitive slave keeps the polestar in his eye; but that is sufficient guidance for all our life. We may not arrive at our port within a calculable period, but we would preserve the true course." (Pg 46-7)
We must embrace the fact that our path will come with it’s difficulties; however, we may face it with determination, strengthened with our other tools.
III. EDUCATE YOURSELF!
Our paths should take us, regardless of how diverse they appear, towards heaven and a greater understanding of God and His eternal truths. We need to "keep a bright fire both within ...house and within ...breast." (Pg 161) The means whereby we choose to be educated is essential in our eternal progression towards Godhood. With our time as valuable as it is, we must be cautious where we turn for wisdom. "A single gentle rain makes the grass many shades greener. So our prospects brighten on the influx of better thoughts." (Pg 203) As we fill our mind with good literature, the beauty of nature, and the lessons of our experience, our futures improve with potential and direction.
Classics
With the surplus of information available, we must use discretion in our reading."I read one or two shallow books of travel in the intervals of my work, till that employment made me ashamed of myself, and I asked where it was then that I lived." (Pg 65) Thoreau comments that he does not "make any very broad distinction between the illiterateness of my townsman who cannot read at all, and the illiterateness of him who has learned to read only what is for children and feeble intellects." (Pg 70) We must continually "seek out of the best books words of wisdom" (D&C 88:118):
"Men sometimes speak as if the study of the classics would at length make way for more modern and practical studies; but the adventurous student will always study classics, in whatever language they may be written and however ancient they may be. For what are the classics but the noblest recorded thoughts of man? They are the only oracles which are not decayed, and there are such answers to the most modern inquiry in them as Delphi and Dodona never gave. We might as well omit to study Nature because she is old. To read well, that is, to read true books in a true spirit, is a noble exercise, and one that will task the reader more than any exercise which the customs of the day esteem...Books must be read as deliberately and reservedly as they were written." (Pg 65)
I cannot enumerate the number of times I have found passages in classics that have applied to my temporary situation or inspired me to seek a better one. Be it our national book or the classics, God uses good books to teach us eternal truths.
Classics take the written word, our tableau of symbols, and use them to capture deep and meaningful concepts. Elder John A. Widtsoe states: "We live in a world of symbols. We know nothing, except by symbols. We make a few marks on a sheet of paper and we say that they form a word, which stands for love, or hate, or charity, or God or eternity. The marks may not be very beautiful to the eye. No one finds fault with the symbols on the pages of a book because they are not as mighty in their own beauty as the things which they represent. We do not quarrel with the symbol G-O-D because it is not very beautiful, yet [it] represents the majesty of God. We are glad to have symbols, if only the meaning of the symbols is brought home to us." (Source not remembered () Thoreau touts the written word as "the choicest of relics. It is something at once more intimate with us and more universal than any other work of art. It is the work of art nearest to life itself." (Pg 67) How wonderful it is that those with the gift of putting their thoughts into words share them with us through the classics, so that we may find means to express that which sometimes seems unexpressible! "The words which express our faith and piety are not definite; yet they are significant and fragrant like frankincense to superior natures." (Pg 210) The classics lift us, teaching us, reaching our innermost soul in ways inexplicable. "Books, the oldest and the best, stand naturally and rightfully on the shelves of every cottage. They have no cause of their own to plead, but while they enlighten and sustain the reader his common sense will not refuse them. Their authors..., more than kings or emperors, exert an influence on mankind." (Pg 67) Many books, like Walden, have shaped me and changed me for the better.
Classics teach us how to be better through the examples of people, fictitious or real: "We should be as good as the worthies of antiquity, but partly by first knowing how good they were."(Pg 70) By reading the lives and experiences of others, we often find something to relate to, something to hope for, or ideas of how the future can be better. When we are confronted with the lives, real or imagined, of the characters in books, we have the same choice we had before, whether to choose to conform to what the character believes in or not. It is powerful to be able to see consequences for actions and choose them using other’s experiences as an example than to have to experience the consequences for everything ourselves. "How many a man has dated a new era in his life from the reading of a book. The book exists for us perchance which will explain our miracles and reveal new ones. The at present unutterable things we may find somewhere uttered. These same questions that disturb and puzzle and confound us have in their turn occurred to all the wise men; not one has been omitted; and each has answered them, according to his ability, by his words and his life." (Pg 70) True classics mold us, shape us, bring us closer to God and his ideal for us. "The age will be rich indeed when those relics which we call Classics, and the still older and more than classic but even less known Scriptures of the nations, shall have still further accumulated...and all the centuries to come shall have successively deposited their trophies in the forum of the world. By such a pile we may hope to scale heaven at last." (Pg. 68)
Experience
Reading itself would be empty but for experience to go with it. Thoreau captures this beautifully in his passage regarding how much better a young man can learn to use a knife through experience verses simply out of a text book. "How could youths better learn to live than by at once trying the experiment of living?"(See pgs 32-33) We need to look at our lives as "living laboratories", seeking to always make the most of it. "My life itself was become my amusement and never ceased to be novel. It was a drama of many scenes and without end." (Pg 73) To interact with, to feel, to shape the ideas one is dealing with is an effective teaching tool, one Thoreau suggests should be used in the teaching of our students:
"We have comparatively decent system of common schools, schools for infants only...We spend more on almost any article of bodily aliment or aliment than on our mental aliment. It is time that we had uncommon schools, that we did not leave off our education when we begin to be men and women. It is time that villages were universities, and their elder inhabitants the fellows of universities, with leisure–if they are indeed so well off– to pursue liberal studies the rest of their lives...surround [yourself] with whatever conduces to ...culture–genius– learning–wit–books–paintings– statuary– music–philosophical instrument, and the like." (Pg 71-72)
Schools such as this would truly be uncommon.
Observations of Nature
As Thoreau makes observations regarding his own experience, he finds joy and satisfaction mingling what he learned in the classics to his observations of nature. He marveled at "how long men will believe in the bottomlessness of a pond without taking the trouble to sound it." (Pg 184) His ability to apply his classical education to his observations expand his mind to perceive what I feel are some of God’s truths and constants. " I went to the woods because I wished to live deliberately, to front only the essential facts of life, and see if I could not learn what it had to teach, and not, when I came to die, discover that I had not lived." (Pg 59) Nature very poignantly teaches many of "life’s little lessons" that prepare us for eternity.
In this way, we learn more about how God created the earth: "This it seemed that this one hillside illustrated the principle of all the operations of Nature. The Maker of this earth but patented a leaf....It convinces me that Earth is still in her swaddling clothes, and stretches forth baby fingers on every side." (Pg 199) Thoreau has many moments in Walden in which he applies his classical knowledge to what he observes around him and comes to an "ah-hah!" moment. The following is merely one: "When I see...the creation of an hour, I am affected as if in a peculiar sense I stood in the laboratory of the Artist who made the world and me.–had come to where he was still at work, sporting on this bank, and with excess of energy strewing his fresh designs about...No wonder that the earth expresses itself outwardly in leaves, it so labors with the idea inwardly. The atoms have already learned this law, and are pregnant with it. The overhanging leaf sees here its prototype....The feathers and wings of birds are still drier and thinner leaves....The whole tree itself is but one leaf, and rivers are still vaster leaves whose pulp is intervening earth, and towns and cities are the ova of insects in their axils."(Pg 198) Within this paragraph he "digresses" into the Greek and Latin derivatives of words pertinent to his thoughts [on these "convergent/shared" patterns] to reinforce his "ah-hah!". His education, his study of classics, combine with his observations of nature to create a mind-opening relevance of different subjects to one idea, perhaps even an eternal idea.
Thoreau sees patterns in what he observes, for example: "As every season seems best to us in its turn, so the coming in of spring is like the creation of Cosmos out of Chaos." (Pg 202) Thoreau breaks down his observations into these patterns, drawing the reader with him, and hence, preparing the reader to become a creator themselves. On page 115 in particular is a passage which captures the intricacy, beauty, and patterns of the pond in such vivid detail, that if I had the power, I could paint it with a brush. Another example is when he compares a man to the pond itself: "What I have observed of the pond is no less true in ethics. It is the law of average. Such a rule of the two diameters not only guides us toward the sun in the system and the heart in man, but draw lines through the length and breadth of the aggregate of a man’s particular daily behaviors and waves of life into his coves an inlets, and where they intersect will be the height or depth of his character. Perhaps we need only to know how his shores trend and his adjacent country or circumstances, to infer his depth and concealed bottom." (Pg 188) Who knows but that God uses His grand tapestry of Nature to teach us more of Him and of ourselves?
Thoreau concludes: "If we knew all the laws of Nature, we should need only one fact, or the description of one actual phenomenon, to infer all the particular results at that point. Now we know only a few laws, and our result is vitiated, not, of course, by any confusion or irregularity in Nature, but by our ignorance of essential elements in the calculation. Our notions of law and harmony are commonly confined to those instances which we detect; but the harmony which results from a far greater number of seemingly conflicting, but really concurring, laws, which we have not detected, is still more wonderful. The particular laws are as our points of view, as, to the traveller, a mountain outline varies with every step, and it has an infinite number of profiles, though absolutely but one form. Even when cleft or bored through it is not comprehended in its entireness." (Pg 188) This is heartening with the vastness of knowledge out there, to think that all truth can be circumscribed into one great whole. In D&C 88:78 and 80 the Lord tells us: "My grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand ;...That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you." The spirit opens our minds and broadens our perceptions in correlating truths that are relevant to our lives and mission. Thoreau’s own marvelous use of his education and observation is inspiring in my quest for eternal truths.
IV. SHARE
Having arrived at truth ourselves, we are compelled –we are duty-bound– to share it with others and apply what we have learned: "To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor even to found a school, but so to love wisdom as to live according to its dictates,...it is to solve some of the problems of life, not only theoretically, but practically." (Pg 9) There is a great need for real truth in this world. "While civilization has been improving our houses, it has not equally improved the men who are to inhabit them. It has created palaces, but it was not so easy to create noblemen and kings." (Pg 21) Our homes and schools must not just be places of memorization, but motivators for application. As President Gordon B. Hinckley admonishes: "You are good. But it is not enough just to be good. You must be good for something. You must contribute good to the world. The world must be a better place for your presence. And that good that is in you must be spread to others."" (No Doubt About It, Sheri Dew, pg 3)
We must give people the tools to change their lives as we have done. I love the adage: "Give a man a fish, and you will feed him for a day; teach a man to fish, and you will feed him for a life-time." Thoreau advises us to:
"Be sure that you give the poor the aid they most need, though it be your example which leaves them far behind. If you give money, spend yourself with it, and do not merely abandon it to them. We make curious mistakes sometimes. Often the poor man is not so cold and hungry as he is dirty and ragged and gross. It is partly his taste, and not merely his misfortune. IF you give him money, he will perhaps buy more rags with it...there are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root, and it may be that he who bestows the largest amount of time and money on the needy is doing the most by his mode of life to produce that misery which he strives in vain to relieve...I would not subtract any thing from the praise that is due to philanthropy, but merely demand justice for all who by their lives and works are a blessing to mankind." (Pg. 49-50)
As we seek to lift others, we will not be able to help being lifted ourselves. How much easier it is to fill other’s lives with goodness, when we have acquired some ourselves!
V. CONCLUSION
As we confront what is unnecessary in our lives and seek the simplicity suggested by Thoreau, we begin to see a better way of life, a more realistic and enjoyable approach to fulfilling our missions:
"I learned this, at least, by my experiment; that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours. He will put some things behind, will pass an invisible boundary; new, universal, and more liberal laws will begin to establish themselves around and within him; or the old laws will be expanded, and interpreted in his favor in a more liberal sense, and he will live with the license of a higher order of beings." (pg 209)
We will perceive these "universal, more liberal" laws more clearly –value them more dearly– if we not only examine our use of time, but choose to consciously fill it with goodness. Thoreau implies that as we "simplifies [our lives], the laws of the universe will appear less complex, and solitude will not be solitude, nor poverty poverty, nor weakness weakness. If you have built castles in the air, your work need not be lost; that is where they should be. Now put the foundations under them." (Pg. 209) This puzzling irony only makes sense as we put into practice what we have to initially accept on faith– that we may actually accomplish more by doing our best cheerfully, and then standing still to see God work His miracles. We can slow down and still move forward. I have seen this happen in my own life.
I would like to close this paper with a couple of my favorite quotes from Walden:
"I perceive that we...live this mean life that we do because our vision does not penetrate the surface of things. We think that is which appears to be...Men esteem truth remote, in the outskirts of the system beyond the farthest star...But all these times and places and occasions are now and here. God himself culminates in the present moment, and will never be more divine in the lapse of all the ages." (Pg 63)
"The light which puts out our eyes is darkness to us. Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star." (Pg 216)
"It one listens to the faintest by constant suggestions of his genius, which are certainly true, he sees not to what extremes, or even insanity, it may lead him; and yet that way, as he grows more resolute and faithful, his road lies. No man ever followed his genius till it misled him... The greatest gains and values are farthest from being appreciated....They are the highest reality. Perhaps the facts most astounding and most real are never communicated by man to man. The true harvest of my daily life is somewhat as intangible and indescribable as the tints of morning or evening. It is a little star-dust caught, a segment of the rainbow which I have clutched." (Pg 140)
We can reach for the intangible –the perfect and beautiful within ourselves– as we slow down, look at the good already in our lives, and feel motivated to act upon it, improve upon it. Our search in classics and nature will illuminate eternal constants that are important to us, and enable us to see our missions with clearer vision. Utilizing these perspectives and resources we will become closer to realizing our divine potential as children of God, our "true harvest".
