The Christ in Christmas

I just received an e-mail with the opening line: "Happy non-denominational holidays to you and yours!"  Even if I weren't religious, I think that would want to make me puke.  Why not just say "Happy New Year"?  Because if we are honest with ourselves, every other holiday at this time of year is religious--they have religious roots and deep religious meaning.  Christmas, for all of its commercial influence and spending, is truly about Christ.

Whether or not we are always conscious of it, symbols of Christ's birth permeate this season and each of our holiday experiences.  The following may seem elementary, but Christ instructed us to become as little children.  When I walk down the streets of Manhattan, arguably one of the more secular cities in the nation, I am surrounded by symbols of Christ's birth, ministry, and life mission.  The rampant evergreen Christmas trees adorned with tiny white lights symbolize that Christ is the light of the world and that His eternal atoning sacrifice provides eternal life for each of us.  From the New York Cares coat drive in Grand Central Station to the Marine Corps' Toys for Tots, we are reminded that Christ's lifelong service ministering to the sick and needy is also our responsibility and opportunity to help those in our midst.  Indeed, the multitudes of homeless and unemployed people I pass each day on my walk to work are a constant reminder that "the poor shall never cease out of the land" and that we are commanded, not merely by an earthly government or by social responsibility, but by God himself to "open thine hand wide unto they brother to thy poor, and to thy needy, in thy land."  (Deuteronomy 15:11) 

Living outside of the city, we are finally able to see stars, reminding us of the star that symbolized Christ's birth.  Last night, Nathan and I decorated our own Christmas tree with candy canes, symbolizing the canes of the shepherds who visited the baby Jesus 2000 years ago in Bethlehem.  And as so many of us engage in giving gifts to friends and relatives, we are participating in a symbol of our Heavenly Father's supernal gift of His first born Son and the subsequent gift that Son, Jesus Christ, gave to each of us when He suffered for our sins in the Garden of Gethsemane and died for us on Calvary's hill.

This is a particularly important year for Jews, Christians, and non-religious English speakers alike, though many may be unaware of its importance.  Four hundred years ago, the King James translation of the Bible was completed.  Many sources have cited the King James Bible as the most influential book in the world, not only for its influence on the history of the world, but also for its supreme impact on the human language.  (The King James Bible has contributed more to the English language than any other single source, including the works of Shakespeare.) 

Nathan and I have begun celebrating the Christmas season by simultaneously celebrating the lives and work of many martyrs and others who sacrificed to translate the Bible so that the common man or woman would have access to it.  One way we are celebrating is by watching a fantastic mini-series about the multi-century history of the coming forth of the King James Bible.  You can watch it here for free.  The testimonies of people like William Tyndale have reminded me of and strengthened my own testimony of the importance and divinity of the Savior, Jesus Christ.  He lives.  He gave His life that we may all live again.  The Bible and Book of Mormon testify of Him.  He is the Christ, the Redeemer of the world.  We are all indebted to Him, and Christmas is His holiday.

When is Success a Failure?

When you are doing the lower while the higher is possible,
When you are not a cleaner, finer larger man on account of your work,
When you live only to eat and drink, have a good time, and accumulate money, then success is a failure.

When you do not carry a higher wealth in your character than in your pocketbook,
When the attainment of your ambition has blighted the aspirations and crushed the hopes of others,
When hunger for more money, more land, more houses and bonds has grown to be your dominant passion,
When your profession has made you a physical wreck--a victim of 'nerves' and moods,
When your absorption in your work has made you practically a stranger to your family,
When your greed for money has darkened and cramped your wife's life, and deprived her of self-expression,
               of needed rest and recreation, of amusement of any kind,
When all sympathy and fellowship have been crushed out of your life by selfish devotion to your vocation,
When you do not overtop your vocation, when you are not greater as a man than as a lawyer, a merchant,
               a physician or a scientist,
When you plead that you have never had time to cultivate your friendships, your politeness, or
               your good manners,
When you have lost on your way your self-respect, your courage, your self-control, or any other
              quality of manhood, then success has been a failure.

-- as quoted by Hugh B. Brown in LDS Conference Report, April 1969, p. 113

My thoughts: First, in today's world this applies just as much to women as it does to men.  Second, I don't think we need to experience all of these symptoms to warrant taking a step back and asking if our success has turned to a failure.  Life requires constant reevaluation.  When I say constant, I mean it--daily, sometimes several times per day.  The world pushes each of us to achieve success in a myriad of ways that are destructive to our eternal potential and identities.  This poem struck me as a good reminder of what is important and why we must make an active effort to balance our priorities and put the most important things first.

The Parade of Horribles

This week I had a flashback to law school/bar exam days and the concept of "The Parade of Horribles."  I was reading a magazine and it seemed that in every article I read something tragic had happened to the author.  Everything from multiple family member deaths in the same year to divorce to addiction, and the list goes on.  It reminded me of studying Wills and Property Law for the bar exam last summer.  The only way to make a really interesting (and challenging) question about the law of inheritance is to have a parade of horribles.  Let me illustrate:

Great-grandpa Grant has one living son, Grandpa George, who is married to Grandma Gladys.  Grandma Gladys is a fertile octogenarian (meaning, she can miraculously conceive and bear children at the ripe old age of 70, well past the normal child-bearing age).  George and Gladys have three living children: Albert, Chuck, and Edith.  Albert and his wife Betty have three children; Chuck and his wife Diane have two children; and Edith and her husband Frank could not have children so they adopted a child from Siberia.  The family gathers for great-grandpa Grant's 95th birthday celebration, but Grant keels over into his birthday cake and dies.  His estate is worth $100 million and he dies intestate (without a will).  Three months later (and before the estate has been administered in full to the heirs) George dies of a bad case of polio because he was never vaccinated as a child.  He also dies intestate.  Gladys, the fertile octogenarian, is 7 months pregnant.  Three days after George's death, Albert is killed in a tornado.  His will leaves his entire estate to his mistress, Delilah, who also died in the tornado and was the sole guardian of her adopted child from Paraguay.  At Albert and Delilah's funeral, Chuck declares loudly, "I never wanted any inheritance anyway!" and storms out of the church.  Frank leaves for a hunting expedition in the Amazon two days after the funeral and never returns.  Who inherits great-grandpa Grant's $100 million estate and in what portions?

I ran this scenario by my fiance last night, and being the wonderful man that he is, he listened.  Then I asked, "Why don't we ever talk about the parade of happiness?  You know, the good in life?  Why aren't there magazine articles about that?"  And he responded, "Well, it would get too confusing.  Can you imagine if after the parade of horribles you had Bill miraculously coming back to life and Ted returning from a trip when everyone thought he was dead?"  He flashed me a grin.

That, dear readers, was a happy moment.

Positive Proof

In high school and prior educational experiences, I remember being taught that it is much easier to prove a negative than a positive.  To prove something is false, you only need one counter-example--to prove something is true, you have to really apply yourself, and those theorems and postulates you learned in geometry.  Even then sometimes it can be difficult to really believe your proof is right because you have to have an underlying faith in the postulates and theorems on which it is based.

In life, it is easier to close doors and stand still, proving to yourself that "X" will never happen, than it is to persist on the path of faith and work toward a goal.  How much easier is it to guarantee you will fail a test than it is to guarantee you will get an A?  How much easier is it to prove to yourself that you can isolate yourself from friendships than it is to be certain  you will have a vibrant group of friends?  How much easier is it to say to yourself, "life is hard" as opposed to saying, "things will improve"? 

This principle--negatives being easier to prove than positives--manifests itself beyond the 9th or 10th grade student stumbling through geometric proofs.  Take physics and the principle of entropy for example: all things in the universe tend toward disorder.  Energy must be exerted to create, to build, to uplift. 

Sometimes we want to know we are right more than we want to progress or feel peace or happiness.  We prefer immediate certainty over deferred satisfaction, and thus, we limit ourselves.  We prefer not to exert ourselves because we either don't want the reward badly enough, or we don't believe it really exists.  We get discouraged with how we are performing at school or work and stop trying, ensuring that we will most certainly perform below our potential.  We fear rejection and thereby ensure a single, friendless existence by staying home from a party instead of going to meet new people.  We are proud and would rather be right about being unhappy than allow ourselves to be humble and happy.

Positive proofs in life are iterative.  As we learn to trust others and ourselves, we have to exhibit faith, believe in positive outcomes, recognize positive outcomes, and then repeat the process over and over again until we develop a knowledge that good things do happen, good friendships are developed, and good accomplishments are achieved.  Just like in geometry, positive proofs are still harder to solve than negative ones.

Impossible

I woke up this morning thinking about impossible things that have happened in my life.  The best things that have happened in the past several years are the things that somebody at one point told me were impossible.  Here are some examples:  My sophomore chemical engineering professor told us that if we felt our classes were a struggle then, we should drop out because they were going to get so much more difficult.  Thank goodness for my mom who told me, "He's not talking about you.  Stick with it.  You can do it."  I graduated in chemical engineering and actually did pretty well.

The law journals panel during the first year of law school told us how competitive it would be to get on main journal and that it would be wise to consider applying to one of the lower ranked journals if you didn't have "x" GPA.  I didn't have "x" GPA and almost didn't bother applying to the main journal or trying very hard in the application process.  I'm glad I didn't listen because I worked my tail off on the application and made it onto the staff of The Georgetown Law Journal.

My career counselor told me that it would be impossible for me to get a job with a top firm.  She was wrong.

Two and a half years ago I tried training for a half-marathon and thought it was impossible.  I just ran my fourth half-marathon on Saturday.

My dad told me that associates at law firms don't get married until their 30's.  (Cue the tears...)  I pled with my Heavenly Father to help me with dating and progressing toward marriage.  When He told me to "move to New York" I responded "that's impossible.  I'll never be able to leave the office or have any sort of social life there."  Well, I'm not married yet, nor am I engaged (thanks for asking), but I moved to New York (reluctantly) and started dating my boyfriend the very first day I moved to the city.  This relationship has the greatest potential of any relationship I've been in, by far, so who am I to say it's impossible?

For the past six months I've been guilty of buying into the "that's impossible" mentality.  It's impossible to work where I do and have a life.  It's impossible to build lasting relationships.  It's impossible to have hobbies.  It's impossible to stay physically fit.  It's impossible to have any sort of balance in life.  It's impossible to be an active member of my church.  It's impossible to pursue a career that will be intellectually satisfying.  Do you feel drained after reading all that?  Those are draining thoughts.  But what I realized this morning is that when someone else says, or when we tell ourselves, "that's impossible," we are really just saying "that is going to be challenging, but the reward will be that much more satisfying because the task seemed impossible."