Hooked By One Look

(The picture above is a finalist in the 2014 Porn Hub ad contest they held. I believe they were trying very hard to normalize pornography and this add seems so simple and harmless until you take a closer look.)

When the readings turned to pornography I found it interesting in the different levels of feelings towards it. I felt like some of the information was taking more of a diplomatic approach and skimming the surface and not facing the true danger of pornography and that kind of bothered me. I specifically didn’t like this line below from the State of the Nation Report:

“These researchers believe that the majority of people who visit online sex sites do so without any harm,…”

The first view is harmful, there is no getting around that fact but many try to state that it isn’t harmful in small doses. It is good that the world in general is having more dialogue around the pornography issue but to me it feels too timid and politically correct. This is a disease ravishing our world and it is not getting the honest attention it needs in order to stop it. Back in the October 2004 Priesthood Session President Gordon B Hinckley said:

“It is like a raging storm, destroying individuals and families, utterly ruining what was once wholesome and beautiful. I speak of pornography in all of its manifestations.”

President Hinckley didn’t say that pornography would be harmless the first time or that this form was ok; it is destructive from the start in any of its forms. There needs to be more studies down that focus on all the impacts pornography has including the physical changes that happen in your brain. Something that has been scary to me is how certain forms of pornography are being seen as acceptable even among church members. I have several friends that see no harm in reading erotic literature and yet condemn men for watching pornography. They fail to realize they are being hypocrites and that the literature is porn.

The devastation is already beginning in families across the nation and with the Porn industries increasing efforts to normalize pornography we will begin to see increasing casualties. More and more people will become desensitized to the negative impact across all areas of a person because of pornography and justify their use.  

Dr. Gottman had some great insights to our dreams and how gridlock situations are a result of those not being met. It reminded me of something that Dr. John Lund said in a talk, he is a dreamer and his wife is very practical. He loves to talk and dream about a cabin in the mountains and at the beginning of their marriage she was afraid he would impulse buy a cabin they couldn’t afford. What it came down to was he enjoyed talking about his dream and he encouraged everyone to not kill their spouse’s dreams. This has always stuck with me and I can see another level of its importance from what Dr. Gottman said.

There is so much of our identity in our dreams and hopes and to have it unceremoniously discarded or discredited feels like an attack on who we are. In all of the scenarios that Dr. Gottman presented I could see how the one side was putting who they were out there. One of the scariest things about marriage to me was having one person have such intimate knowledge of me the good and the bad. There is a lot of opportunity for a spouse to rack their partner over the coals for the failings because of that intimate knowledge. Dr. Goddard said:

            “If I am unhappy with Nancy it is because I do not understand or do not honor the covenants I have made. I do not have charity.”

The las part of not having charity was so impactful on me. I have such a hard time with being charitable with myself and those I come in contact with and through the years I have curbed what I say out loud but the inner dialogue is horrible. I fall into the trap of thinking that my perception is reality and therefore that person is bad because of XY and Z. I realized through the readings it is because I am feeding the natural man inclination and turning away from Christ and seeing others as he sees them.

It is interesting because I don’t see my husband uncharitably but some of his family members I really struggle with. In fact one of our gridlocks is over his family members and it is because of my behavior and unwillingness currently to look beyond my perceptions. My husband is so loving and charitable to everyone, and from my perspective it comes as naturally as breathing to him, and it makes me take a defensive stance that I need to ‘protect’ him from being used and abused by those that I think are not deserving of such charity. This week I have learned a lot about the things that I need to work on and like C.S. Lewis said I have some rats in my cellar that I need to work on.

What is the Worth of My Sacrifice?

Pondering the idea of the quality of my sacrifices or if I truly do make ‘sacrifices’ I was struck by what President Young said of members living the law of consecration. He stated that some did it right while others gave their defective surplus. This made me consider my contributions, and what category I am in based on the contributions/sacrifices I have made.

More often I am closer to the members that gave the defective cow than the greatest that I have. Thinking of contributions to food banks, can food drives, etc that I have done I am usually giving the things that I don’t really enjoy but have on my shelf, that I don’t care if I give away. It becomes more a motivation of clearing my shelfs of unwanted food than it is of sacrificing things I cherish to benefit others.

The other great example was of Abraham and Isaac; both are willing to give up their most cherished things for the Lord simply because he asked it. Made me stop and think would I be willing to do as much for the Lord or my spouse. I really loved how this question was asked in terms of our marriages and this excerpt really brought home the point to me:

“Do we bring our greatest generosity and richest forgiving to our marriages? Do we offer our whole souls and our best efforts as an offering?”

This made me stop and pause because I feel like my husband gets the leftovers; I put a lot of my energy into work, and my callings and my husband gets what remains. The priority according to my actions is everything outside of the home and my relationship with my husband and by the time the weekend comes we are both so drained that we stay in bed and have very lazy around the house days instead of enjoying quality time together and building our relationship.

While our current pattern hasn’t become an issue yet I can see that we are creating a pattern that can turn into feelings of disinterest towards one another down the road. We are not investing our best into each other. Life is only going to become more hectic and busy and if we don’t start making a habit of putting our best efforts into each other now we may find down the road that we had unnecessary hurt and heartache. 

Truth an Enemy...

I found it really interesting in the reading about the ‘truth’ and how we all perceive our views as the only right one. This is something that I have noticed recently that it bothers me when other people don’t see that they are biased from their perception and yet I do it all the time! I think a major part of why it bothers me in other people is because I know that I do it myself and it is something that I want to correct.

Connected with this was another Ah Ha moment from the reading which was, you can only critics if you love the person. This really hit home to me because in my mind I am very critical of people. I go through a whole life history in my head from one look and it is all my perception and imagination, and yet I act as if that was all truth.

 Being on vacation in Rome I especially noticed it, there are a lot of people vying for you attention to buy something or to eat at this restaurant. It tends to be very tedious to be constantly bothered to buy the same thing over and over again and when I first got her I was contemptuous of it all. After meeting up with my parents I learned of the incredible struggle in Rome to get work. There are too many people here and not enough jobs, and the jobs that are available are only given to the Italians. Most of the street vendors are immigrants and after gaining that insight I saw men doing whatever they could to provide for their families.

When I was willing to apply the knowledge I had gained of the true situation here, and saw through my mother’s actions the compassion she had for them I began to act differently. I didn’t go out and buy everything, however, my attitude and actions did. I was much more civil, realizing the amount of stress they are under, and the amount of rejection they receive on a daily basis. I started to try and walk in their shoes and worked on being nicer as I would want to be treated if the roles were reversed.