On the subject of tolerance

After some recent discussions I've had with family and friends, I've felt the need to jot down and share some thoughts I've had with regard to the term "tolerance" and its application in today's society.

There are many today who, espousing a particular viewpoint or belief, will declare that those who disagree with them are "intolerant," quickly followed by accusations of hatred. Yet, by what definition is a person declared to be "intolerant?"

I must suppose, to begin, with the assumption that everyone believes that their personal beliefs have some degree of merit or, in other words, that they are in some way "right" in feeling or thinking the way that they do. Drawing upon an easy example, conservatives feel that conservative ideas have merit and liberals believe that liberal ideas have merit and each one feels that they are right and that the other is, by default, wrong.

Does this inherently imply that one side is intolerant of the other? While I do my best to try and see the logical basis behind any argument no matter how much I may disagree with it and while I am familiar with the idea that "A is right for me and B is right for you," many such ideas and beliefs are directly contradictory and I cannot conceive of a rational human being accepting all ideas presented to him/her as being correct and incorporating them into their philosophy.

I am, for example, a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, more commonly known as Mormon. As such, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the Savior of mankind. I also believe that God still speaks to mankind through a prophet, just as in ancient times. I believe the Holy Bible to be the word of God inasmuch as it is translated and preserved correctly. I also believe the Book of Mormon, written by ancient prophets on the American continent and revealed to a modern-day prophet, Joseph Smith, to be the word of God. These beliefs separate me ideologically from all but about 14 million of Earth's inhabitants which, compared with a little under 7 billion or so people on earth, is a fairly small group.

I am hardly immune from the right vs. wrong paradigm. Yes, I believe that I'm right. This implies that, while I believe that a lot of other faiths have valuable truths in their creeds, I believe that everyone else, at some point, is wrong. Does this make me intolerant? If so, does that automatically make me a hater and, thus, mean that I hate nearly 7 billion people?

By no means! One of the basic foundations of Christ's gospel, as I've discussed elsewhere in this blog, is to love everyone. EVERYONE. Think about that for a moment. I can wait.

While I cannot honestly state that I have achieved this perfect love of all mankind, I think I can honestly state that I don't currently hate anyone. Thus, in my case at the very least (and I believe that this extends to the rest of humanity as well), disagreeing with someone does not mean hating them, nor does it mean that one is "intolerant."

After all this, how do I define tolerance and, by extension, intolerance? To my way of thinking, it boils down to how we feel about and treat those who disagree with us. Do we attach a derogatory label to them by default, like one of my professors at BYU who, when it comes to politics, seems to automatically assume that anyone who disagrees with him is an idiot and, ergo, not worth his time nor a shred of politeness? This, to me, seems the very height of intolerance. As another real-life example, I recently heard of a friend of mine who had been labelled intolerant by a group of his peers because he disagreed with them on a particularly touchy political subject. A member of this group decided to buy cupcakes for everyone except my friend. Remind me, who's being intolerant here?

By contrast, getting back to the principle of loving all mankind, I believe that tolerance means loving and respecting everyone, whether they agree with you or not. As I once told a friend of mine while discussing another friend who had made what I believed to be a less-than-appropriate life choice, if I limited my circle of friends to those who strictly follow God's law according to *my* interpretation of it, I couldn't even be my own friend. The same applies for politics: If I only made friends with those who think the same way I do, I would have had VERY few friends in Connecticut. Thus, I still consider that previously mentioned BYU professor my friend (which is why he remains nameless here).

I leave you tonight with a scripture taken from the words of Christ which, while it never uses the word "tolerance," demonstrates my point well.

Matthew 5:43-48

⁴³Ye have heard that it hath been said, Thou shalt love thy neighbour, and hate thine enemy.

⁴⁴But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for them which despitefully use you, and persecute you;

⁴⁵That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

⁴⁶For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? do not even the publicans the same?

⁴⁷And if ye salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? do not even the publicans so?

⁴⁸Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect.

We interrupt this travelogue . . .

To bring you a Charity Challenge!

**Step 1**
For all of you out there with a spouse/significant other who is NOT currently in the room or very close by:

• Think of 3 reasons why you love them.
  
• Contact them immediately and share your feelings.
  
• DO NOT mention this challenge in the process. If you do, you score no points!

For all of you out there with a spouse/significant other or other close family member who IS currently in the room or very close by:

• Go right now and give them a hug.
  
• Look them in the eye and tell them that you love them.
  
• If you laugh, you score no points!
• Sometime this week, do them a special, secret favor.
  
• If you call attention to it or tell them you did it because of this challenge, lose 10 points!
  

For all of you out there without a spouse/significant other (bonus points for those who do have one!):

• Take a moment to think of a friend, family member or neighbor whose life you can bless today by either your presence or your words.
  
• Pray about it, then act on it!
  
• DO NOT mention this challenge in the process. If you do, you score no points!
• If you can't think of anything/anyone, lose 5 points!
• If you think of something you could do to bless someone's life and you don't do it, lose 10 points!

**Step 2**
For everyone:

• Do someone in your life (other than the person from Step 1) a favor today.
• Say something kind to someone else today.
• Say an extra prayer for someone today.
• Introduce yourself to someone you don't know this week.
  
• If you call attention to doing any of these things or mention this challenge as your impetus, no points for you!

**Step 3**
Scoring

• Your score is determined by how happy you feel when you finish.
  
• Are you satisfied with your score?
  
• If so, doesn't it feel nice? Keep up the great work!
  
• If not, keep trying!
• Regardless, try to be charitable every day. I promise that your life will be blessed for it even more than the lives you personally touch!
  

Of vehicles, forgiveness and the Atonement

Sunday, particularly Fast Sunday, is a time for reflection, for pondering the things of God and the blessing he has given us. Today, my mind turned to a recent tremendous blessing we received at the hands of a kind and honest man. Kind and honest are not words one usually associates with mechanics, but in Ray's case, they fit.
He offers a special "student discount," the amount of which is rarely expressly stated but which has always saved us a bit when we've taken our car, Virginia (named for a kind and generous aunt from whom we received the car), in for routine check-ups and oil changes.

Recently, Virginia's cruise control stopped working. This is an annoyance for Emilee, whose hour-long daily commute is made somewhat harder because of it. It was somewhat more of an annoyance during our recent trip to California. Considering our impending journey to Connecticut, we realized that we would really like to have it working. Since we were taking Virginia in for Safety and Emissions inspections (and the new tires and oxygen sensor needed to pass those inspections), we figured it would be a good time to have Ray's people look at the cruise control.

We had the misfortune to be placed under the management of Randy, Ray's number two in command. Randy has a politician's smile, a salesman's smooth talk, a coal miner's handshake and an unfortunate tendency to neglect to call you when he says he will. After several hours of examination Randy told us that we needed a whole new engine computer and that we could either find one ourselves or he could procure one for about $200.

A quick search on eBay revealed an appropriate part for $45. We ordered it, got it in and handed it to Randy. Blake, the beleaguered mechanic who actually did the work, spent a couple of hours prying open our car to get at the engine computer and said, "This isn't the right engine computer - the color coding doesn't match!"

The person from whom we acquired the part refunded our payment without any hassle. I quickly found (using part numbers this time instead of just a description) a correct computer, ordered it and presented it to Randy. Blake confirmed that it was the right part and proceeded to spend a few hours installing it.

It didn't fix the cruise control.

Randy said, at this point, "Well, we've only been able to have a few hours at a time with your car so far - if you let me have it for an entire day, we'll be able to get it fixed." Accordingly, we left Virginia in Randy and Blake's care for over 8 hours on the following Monday, which Emilee happened to have off of work. The word now was that we needed a new Cruise Control Module (Question here: Why skip the Cruise Control Module and go straight for the Engine Computer when you're trying to fix the Cruise Control? Maybe it's because I'm not a mechanic, but that doesn't make much sense to me . . .), with similar options for acquiring one.

At this point, Emilee and I decided to cut our losses. As a friend took me to Ray's, I began a fretful calculation in my head of the number of hours of labor for which we would be charged and the hundreds of dollars we would have sunk into a wild goose chase. When I arrived, I found Ray behind the counter - Monday is Randy's day off. Ray had familiarized himself with our situation and said, "After everything Randy's had you do to try and fix this problem, making you find your own parts and everything . . . I'm not gonna charge you for the labor."

Now THAT'S what I call a Student Discount! Instantly, through nothing I had done, just the simple kindness and generosity of one man, my debt was forgiven. I was elated as I brought Virginia home, feeling truly blessed.

I reflected today that we, as a human race, spend much of our time broken in a spiritual sense. We stumble about through life, looking for help to get fixed but, in the end, no earthly power can truly fix us. The worst of it is that, the longer we're broken, the more spiritual debt we rack up. In the end, though, after all we can do, the great Mechanic of our souls says to us, "After all you've done, I forgive your debt - you owe me nothing. Welcome home." And then He fixes our cruise control anyway.

Every day heroism

It's not often that I get the opportunity to be a hero as mild-mannered Steve, but tonight was such an opportunity. I felt an odd need to go to the grocery store tonight while my wife studied - we weren't completely out of cheese yet, but we were getting close to it. The odd thing is, I almost never go to the store by myself, nor have the desire to do so. Yet, tonight, something moved me to go.
Little did I know as I pulled into the parking lot in my Stingmobile™ that trouble was afoot at Reams. I walked in, shopping list in hand, and was perusing the bananas when someone called my name - a damsel in distress!
Behind me was a young woman who I knew quite well from church. I am, in fact, her home teacher (assigned to serve the spiritual needs of her and her young family), and she was in need of my help. I didn't need to save her 9-month-old from a burning building or get her purse back from a gang of thieves - the rescue was a far simpler matter. She had locked her keys in her car and needed a way to get home to get the other set. I deemed this sufficient justification to use my super-speed to get my shopping done, then brought her home, and took her husband to their still-running car.
There was no fanfare, no badge, no cheering crowd of onlookers, but my mild-mannered heart was filled, knowing that I had been an instrument in the hands of a greater Hero than I in helping my fellow man.