M E R I D I A N M A G A Z I N E
Loving as Christ Loves
By Anne Perry
As is becoming usual, this is at least begun when I have an hour or two to wait
in an airport – Chicago O’Hare, to be specific. I have just had a really wonderful
visit to a mystery writers’ convention called Love is Murder. It was only three
days, but it really was excellent in every way. I always enjoy coming to
On a more serious level, I have come to think that writing fiction where you create all manner of characters and need to grant every one of them a certain dignity and validity of motive, passion, honesty (at least to themselves), it becomes absolutely necessary to understand each person and have some feeling for them yourself. It is impossible to create a character, look at the world through their eyes for any length of time, and not care what happens to them.
One is forced to feel a certain degree of compassion, however one might disagree with their actions, or even find them ugly or stupid. If they have behaved badly, whom have they injured the most? Themselves. They have become that which is without joy or honour, and that can be pitied, but is hard to like. Could anything be more tragic than that?
I read on long flights. I find it the only way not to loathe travelling, unless there is someone interesting to talk to, and quite often there is. The more I read, the more I find that the writers I admire the most, and return to again and again, are those who have compassion for their characters and show those sudden, shining moments of pity for someone in trouble. It may be someone quite unlike themselves, different age, sex and culture, yet they leap across a gulf of difference to share a common humanity. I will remember them long after I have forgotten the story, however gripping it was at the time.
As I said, the conference was a pleasure from beginning to end because the people were so interesting, enthusiastic, passionate about their craft, and generally kind. I made new friends, and found old ones again. We talked of all manner of things, because there is hardly a thing to do with human life, times and places, emotions, questions of right and wrong, joys and griefs, that cannot be found in a good mystery story.
Mysteries used to be simply a question of a crime, and then unravelling the question of ‘who did it’? But that is long past now. Today all the best ones that I know of are explanations not so much of what happened but of why, and then of people’s reactions, good and bad, complex and simple. There can be grace under pressure, hasty judgement or compassion, the ugliness of fear or the beauty of courage. All the complexity that goes to make up humanity is there, its ills and its medicines, success and failure. They are attempts to understand, to make sense of things that go wrong, and thereby to see if one can prevent them from happening again, even on the smallest scale.
We will not prevent all crime or tragedy, but if we prevent, or ease, even one, if we are wiser or gentler after we have understood than we were before, if we judge less, and with pity rather than self-righteousness, then we have achieved a great deal.
*
That brings me, at least in thought to the lesson I taught in Relief Society on the last Sunday in January. I hope the thought it provoked will last not only through February, but through all the years to come. The subject was the Saviour. I was concentrating, as the lesson directed, on our taking Him for our pattern in all things. I asked the natural question, springing from the fact that if we wish to be like Him, then we must know Him: What attributes do we feel certain He possessed? I admit I expected some fairly trite answers and was prepared to dig a great deal further.
I should not have pre-judged, especially not in the negative. We spent longest on what I thought was the most profound answer – that the Saviour would never, ever condescend or patronize anyone. He would not ‘talk down’ or make anyone at all, no matter their status in society or even their sin or virtue, feel as if He thought them useless or inferior.
And yet how often do we do that? In so many conversations do we not hear subtle self-praise at the expense of others?
‘What we believe is right, therefore you are less worthy, less elect than we are.’
‘We come from a country that has greater freedom, justice, honour than your country, therefore we are superior to you. Our culture is more refined, more honourable, we are better than you are.’
‘We have better education, therefore we are more intelligent or refined than you are.’
‘We have more material possessions than you, therefore we are more righteous, our values are superior, less worldly than yours. You can’t have these things without your treasures being of the world – therefore you are worldly and we are spiritual.’
And so it goes on. ‘We have more children than you, therefore we are doing God’s work, and you are not. We are more loved by family, friends etc., therefore more righteous, and more loved of God! We have more and higher callings in the Church, therefore of more use to God, more favoured of God.’
Nonsense! If we say we love God, but do not love men, then we deceive ourselves, and in the words of Christ, the truth is not in us.
And if we loved someone, could we wish to make them feel inferior, less loved, less righteous, less likely to do anything well? On the contrary, to do it blindly – because we do not think – is to be self-absorbed and an unintentional failure as a disciple of Christ. To do it knowing and meaning to, is to have chosen to try to cripple others and ensure that they do not succeed because we have convinced them it is pointless to try. What darkness must be inside us if we do that, what hate, what fear of our own emptiness and failure that we must do all we can to ensure that others fail also?
No one else’s success can rob us of ours. We can only rob ourselves. It is not a competition. If I have loved, if I have been generous, patient, kind, brave, honest, or wise, then I have won. If you are better or happier because of something I have done, then we are both blessed.
And similarly, if I have put a stumbling block in your way, and you are sadder, weaker, more discouraged because of something I have done, or failed to do when I had the opportunity, then you have suffered, but I have lost. It is my spirit that is diminished and I who have limited myself.
I think we all left the class with a determination to be gentler, less self-righteous than before, less praising of our own type of virtue and more generous in recognizing those in others that we may not possess. Nobody is unloved by God, nobody is the wrong colour, the lesser sex, an inferior social status, marital status, professional occupation, or lack of one. If you do your best, according to your knowledge, and are seeking to know the mind and will of God for you, then you are at least close to perfect, possibly you are actually there. Perfect is not a place where we are without fault, it is a state of progress which is the greatest of which you are capable.
I believe we all left both chastened by ourselves, and encouraged by each other. I try harder to look at people and remember that Christ did not ever ‘talk down’ to anyone. And He was morally superior to all of us. If He did not, are we not absurd and contemptible to do so? Ridiculous, certainly, but when you weigh the hurt and the damage we may do, not the least bit funny. There is nothing whatever to laugh at in destroying the faith or the hope of another person.
*
So far we have had the oddest winter. It is early February, and Meg next door to me has daffodils in bloom? (They are supposed to be late March or April!) There have been sheets of snowdrops in flower since the middle of January, but also pansies, primroses, polyanthus, winter aconite and irises! It snowed on Christmas Day, and I believe it snowed again when I was away in the middle of January. That’s it! I haven’t had to take frost off my car windscreen this year. The temperature is in the 40’s and 50’s, and if you look on the map, you will see we are north of Moscow or St. Petersburg or parts of Alaska! But we have had winds. I think I mentioned that before. Up to 135 m.p.h. in places, which is high into the hurricane level. Life is full of the unexpected – both good and bad, difficult and easy.
This is now resumed at home again. There is sunshine one minute and snow the next, but not enough to lie, I think February teaches you to be prepared for anything.
One thing I was definitely not prepared for was catching a chest and stomach bug on the way back, and arriving home feeling so ill I went to bed too tired and too sore to sleep. It is not often that even work, or a good idea, cannot reach me. However I had a blessing in the evening, and within a couple of hours the pain left and I was able to sleep. Now today I feel more human and am able at least to sit up and take notice, even eat a little, carefully.
I think it does us good to be ill now and then. It teaches a bit more sympathy with others, especially those who are ill often, or even most of the time. But the moment one is well again, it is so easy to forget. It is just as well we forget pain, weakness, etc. – it might be crippling to live with the memory too closely, but sympathy shouldn’t go with memory.
*
I see when looking at Meridian that all my past articles are referenced, but there is nothing I can find mentioning the fact that I have edited and published three years of them in a hardback book, entitled Letters from the Highlands, dedicated to Meridian, which has been available since before Christmas, I am not exactly sure where. Some branches of Deseret carry it, at least one in Portland, Oregon does. The understanding was that it would be distributed through all L.D.S. book outlets, but again I don’t know the result.
The publisher, Granite P.D. in Orem, Utah, is only now coming to an arrangement with Barnes & Noble, so altogether I have fallen rather flat. I took such joy in writing it and creating a book of it, I must say I am disappointed so far. But there is always tomorrow.
The same has to be said of that beautiful and inspirational book, Sentinels Along the Way, compiled by my friend Doris S. Platt. (She also edited Friendship: Bread for the Journey.)
The stories in that are personal from all the contributors, deeply moving, and written from the heart. There are tears, joy and hope in all of them. It is one of life’s deepest happinesses to reach out and touch someone else, to share in their beliefs, triumphs and pains, their moments of inspiration that have made them who and what they are.
I wish many such experiences to all of you, such as I had in Chicago, and as can be shared in books. Friendship is one of the most nourishing foods of the soul. Take it in abundance.
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