Facebook Note: Open Hearts Talk

Delivered on June 15th, 2008; published to Facebook on June 24th, 2008

Y'know, I have this thing for using titles with double meaning. Does that denote a touch of schizophrenia? ...Er, if nothing else that I've done has caused you to suspect just that, then I suppose I should be safe. Yeah.

So, I gave a talk in church, on June 15th, 2008. Apparently it was one that some of you listened to! Yay, I didn't put you to sleep! As for the rest of you who didn't hear me, sorry; I don't have any sleeping aids here. Not unless you read this at 11:30 or so, and try reading it without (or with, as your case may be) prescription reading glasses. That should help, or at least give you eyestrain.

Anyway, it has been requested by people who shall thus far remain nameless, and shall remain thusly until I remember who these people are, that I copy this out onto the computer. Ok, and partly thanks to a certain [friend named here]. And, I think I can tag [other friend named here] in this, too. Y'know, just to compel her to read this. Gosh, was it THAT good? Well, then again, if I ever get really good at this writing business, and somehow make it to fame, then I guess you can all be proud to have a copy of my stuff that you didn't need to pay for! ...Hey, wait a minute...! I need a new agent. That hoser.

Ok, I will do this in a sort of hybrid of what I spoke and what I wrote; I didn't quote myself word for word. So, here it goes, and I accredit all of my inconsistencies to my... inconsistency. Holy cow, that was profound... hey, I get writers' block, too! I'm just glad it chose to momentarily unblock itself long enough for me to start and complete this talk on a Friday night, wherein I sat all by myself in my room with a bag of candy, an Ensign, and my MP3 player. We all know I rock... sorry; let me get right to this. ("Right" to this, he said, after going on for two paragraphs of circumlocutory cogitation of crud.)

First, I'd like you to know what the first line I wrote was as I began: "Heh, you know you're cool when... you prepare a talk like Thomas does. Observe." And off I went from there. Yet even as unique as my writing voice is, I still ad-libbed some of it. Here, after my third attempt at an introduction, I think I'll get to what I said:

***

Wow... you know, this pulpit looked a little bit more friendly when I was on the other side of it. 'Cause when I was on your side of it, I could just sit there, not say a word, and listen to the talks... and you wouldn't notice the difference, would you? But you can't get away with that up here. Well, I suppose I'm kind of overdue for this as it is; the last talk I gave was in... late 2006, I think. I was a youth speaker back in my home ward - yes, I really am that young - and I don't think most of you heard me. So, I'm just hoping that the Spirit can help me to talk a little bit more than I do.

Well, good morning brothers and sisters! I really do feel that, today is a good morning... the Lord sort of appears to agree with me. And I hope that I can add to the... goodness. Well, back in April, as you probably know, we had General Conference. If you were able to get to the Saturday afternoon session, you would have heard from Elder Gerald N. Lund, of the Quorum of the Seventy. Now, all of the talks from this last conference were really good. In fact, they were so good that President Monson made a comment about that in his closing remarks, Sunday afternoon. This one kind of stuck out to me; I like writing things, and also read some stuff (yes, I said "stuff), and through a lot of that, I come across metaphors for the heart quite often. So, that might be why the bishopric felt inspired to let me speak on this talk, which is titled "Opening our Hearts." Now, this will be different for me, because this is the first time I've been asked to talk on a talk.

The analogy that Elder Lund makes in his talk is about the figurative fences that we erected around our hearts early on in life. As he says, "The heart is a tender place...sensitive to many influences, both positive and negative." So, some of us have this nice little white picket fence that has this Welcome sign on the gate, while others have "an eight-foot chain link fence topped with razor wire," and a padlocked gate which reads "No Trespassing." And then there's some of us, who have too much time and imagination on our hands, who would say we have a four-foot thick, thirty-foot high concrete and steel plated embankment with guard towers, with laser turrets, and a moat, a portcullis, and drawbridge surrounding our heart. And the sign says "Snipers on Duty." ...That's why I'm still single. It's not fun.

(Originally, there wasn't a new paragraph here; you weren't supposed to be laughing like that!)

I was recently reading about the brother of Jared, and how he closed his heart by not praying for a really long time. So, when he finally did go to pray again, the Lord decided "I need to give this boy a good talking-to," and he went on to chastize him for three hours. ...That's some lecture. I tried that once... didn't like that. However, it's more than just reprimand that we need to worry about if we should also harden our hearts, and not let the Spirit in. Elder Lund quotes Alma, who says "He that will harden his heart, the same recieveth the lesser portion of the word; and he that will not harden his heart, to him is given the greater portion of the word." (Alma 12:10)

Now, apparently when you're up here giving a talk, you aren't supposed to comment, or make any jokes about getting your call to speak. Not like "I shook hands with the bishop last week, and all of a sudden I really regret it." No offense, Bishop. But in my case, I actually did have a significant experience, there, so I think I can share it. Bro. Hudson had e-mailed my topic so that he could attach a copy of the talk I'm working from, as this Ensign chronically goes missing. So, I was reading through that, and the TV was on right beside the computer monitor - I'm so blessed to have younger brothers. I looked over at it for a few minutes, and I saw and heard things that were mildly disturbing, so I tried to concentrate on the talk, as that was my task at hand. Then I saw something that offended the Spirit completely... and I could feel a tangible difference as he left the room. I wasn't too far behind him; I went upstairs to my room so I could pray. It took me about 15 minutes of doing so before that companion of mine returned. There's a dark and cold feeling you get when you close the door to your heart, and during that time I found like Joseph Smith related. I couldn't receive any inspiration to write - and that's something that normally comes really easily to me.

To contrast, before I start getting too gloomy, there's another side to the situation, which Elder Lund also quotes. It's found in Helaman 3:35, which I will read. "Nevertheless they did fast and pray oft, and did wax stronger and stronger in their humility, and firmer and firmer in the faith of Christ, unto the filling their souls with joy and consolation, yea, even to the purifying and the sanctification of their hearts, which sanctification cometh because of their yielding their hearts unto God." So, as you see, the Holy Ghost can bring joy, be consoling, and cause sanctification of our hearts.

Not only that, but I'm sure we have all felt the Holy Ghost do other things in our lives, whether we recognized it or not. He can speak to us, and he does that in a voice that is felt more than it is physically heard - hence, it is called a still, small voice. And yet, even that quiet voice has the ability to speak powerful things to our hearts, when they are open. If you are a convert to the church, or maybe just investigating it today, you probably remember hearing something about the gospel, from the missionaries, or maybe from a friend, and you felt the Spirit quietly saying in that unheard manner, "this is the truth." Maybe you didn't think that was the Holy Ghost talking; you might have thought it was just heartburn, or something like that. I wouldn't really know, since I've had the church from the time I was born, and even though everybody has to have a conversion story somewhere along the line, I was just familiar with it. To that end alone, I might not be the best person to ask about how to open your heart; it started off open like a child's heart, and apparently stayed there.

But I say "apparently" for a reason. Teenagers are great, aren't they? There was this one guy named Alma the Younger, who along with his buddies Ammon, Aaron, Omner, and Himni, provided a great example of that. Here, these boys were the sons of leaders in the church. Sons of the king, who was inspired by God to lead the people, and the son of the PROPHET. So you can imagine that from the beginning they were taught all of the lessons about keeping their hearts open to receive the Spirit. And yet you hear about them being "very wicked and... idolatrous [men]." I can just picture them painting vandalism in the back alley... drag racing on their cureloms. Sorry, I just had to throw that out there.

Well, I personally wasn't as bad as to "[become] a great hinderment to the prosperity of the church of God; stealing away the hearts of the people; causing much dissension among the people; giving a chance for the enemy of God to exercise his power over them." (Mosiah 27:9) But that doesn't mean that I remembered to always play nice with the little kids when they were beating me up. It doesn't mean that I remembered to always pray, or to get along with my brothers, or respect my parents, or always keep my thoughts and my words clean, or things like that. To be honest... I could be downright nasty. I'm sure my parents were doing as Alma the Elder was, or any good parent, and were prayerfully asking "Where did we go wrong? Heavenly Father, what more can we be doing?"

Here is where I quote Elder Lund quoting Elder Bednar quoting Nephi. That's cool. In that verse, 2 Nephi 33:1, our friend Nephi was writing some of the last words we hear from him in the Book of Mormon. He reveals that his talent for speaking was because "when a man speaketh by the power of the Holy Ghost the power of the Holy Ghost carrieth it unto the hearts of the children of men." Elder Bednar then points out "how the power of the Holy Ghost carries the message UNTO, but not necessarily INTO the heart."

So, even if we had the Saviour himself come down in a pillar of light and in all glory, and tell us "the church is true," the Spirit would only bring his witness to that front gate of our hearts - our duty is to decide if we want to flip that latch - or lower the drawbridge, as our case may be - and let it in. I heard some words by an unknown poet once, that talk about letting revelation in, rather than guarding our heart. In that one stanza, it goes:

"And now I say, to ye still here"

List to what you do not hear

Feel, as you did, the cry

A call from them seen not by eye

Once long ago, 'twere less subtle;

You would not defer

What heart felt was sure

And you conjured no rebuttal."

...That can be a bit of a steep request at times, can't it? It could be your job to honestly and sincerely ask, "Is this book, the Book of Mormon, really the word of God?" Or maybe allow yourself to believe, "Yes, that man who said he talked with angels and translated a book of gold, he was Joseph Smith, the Prophet," or accept a call to speak in church, or maybe act on a voice that says, "Yes, she does like you. Ask her out tomorrow, [third friend named here]." It isn't always easy. (No offense, [third friend again named here]. We all know you're cool.)

It's made harder by the fact that Satan has never before had an easier time confusing us with the world. I think one time that really hit home for me was when I heard about this thing called "the low-carb diet;" about a decade of two ago, they had this thing called the "high-carb diet," and apparently they do the exact same thing...um, I don't think so... no.

There are even some people who enjoy corrupting the truth. There's a seminary scripture mastery which some of you might remember, which tells us about why some people wallow in untruth. It's Doctrine and Covenants 121:34 - 35. In verse 34, it says "Behold, there are many called, but few are chosen. And why are they not chosen? Because their hearts are set so much upon the things of the world, and do aspire to the honours of men." With that in sight, it's all the more important that our hearts are opened to let the Spirit in; there are too few people in the world willing to do that.

But in reality, how can we do that? It's not like you can physically open a door, and POOF! there's the Holy Ghost. I know I'm totally stealing almost all of these scripture references off of Elder Lund, but Jesus told us about doing that in a few simple words, from what we now call the Sermon on the Mount. "Blessed are the pure in heart; for they shall see God." There you have it: be pure in heart. Right.

You might have noticed the sign outside of the Institute building, which I believe is right over my shoulder, before you came in. It has the address for the Institute, and underneath that it says The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, and underneath that it notably does NOT say "For The Pure-hearted and Perfect People Only." No, it says "Visitors Welcome," because we know full well that none of us have a perfectly pure, sinless heart. Yet we try anyway.

And personally, I find that if you want to have the Spirit with you, humility is a good place to start. It's like that one line on "The Best Two Years"..."Humility is the key to inspiration...can I write that one down?" (Oh yes, my mission's going to be so much fun...) But allowing revelation is just that - you're saying to yourself, "I know I'm not able to do this without help. I need my Lord to tell me what to do."

I'd like to quote the last stanza of that poem I already quoted - by the way, it's called "A Song of Quiet," by the poet who's still unknown, because I never sign my name at the end of the page. (Usually, there's not even room to do that!)

"This rally song, this harmonic

I'd spread it to the dead and quick

But to hear it, you must seek;

I wrote this silence to the meek.

By want or not, would you please pray?

I would sing to empty nature...

Please, call on your creator.

...With coda, there's naught more to say."

I don't know how well I've emphasized the importance of opening your heart... of course, as I said, it's your job to let it into your heart, and decide if you want to make use of it. There's one more thing I want to share. I kept written notes on this last General Conference, in this little notebook here (the totally awesome notebook), in point form. Sometimes they don't come directly from what the speaker is saying; it comes from what I feel inspired to write down for my personal benefit, and profit and learning. I saw two of those for this talk, where I don't see Elder Lund saying something parallel to them at the time I wrote them down. They go hand in hand: "We NEED the Holy Ghost to get through this life," "NEVER forsake the Spirit; that's allowing your own destruction." I know that, because that same Spirit told me these things.

I'd also like to testify that I know this church is true, and that Joseph Smith really was a prophet, just like we have a prophet today. I know that Jesus Christ was our Saviour. I know that you can find out these truths for yourself if you will ask and find out for yourself, which I hope you will do. And I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.