Experimenting upon the word

Religious trigger warning. If other people’s spirituality bothers you, please move on, but have a great day in spite of it.

This weekend was the semi-annual general conference for my church, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During the conference we participate in five sessions of two hours each, in which we are instructed in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Like usual, I came away wanting to be a better person, not because I was made to feel guilty as I joked with someone later online, but because during the sessions I caught a vision of who I could be. I decided I really want to be that person.

One of the good things about Conference, I’ve found, is that if you’re looking for inspiration and motivation, you’ll find it. If you’re inspired to make a change in your life you’ll also find the counsel and guidance on where to begin and how to proceed. Such was the case for me. I believe I know both where to start and how to proceed. I don’t for a moment pretend it’s going to be easy. The change I desire for myself will require a change of heart, including some very deep, fundamental changes in who I am and how I perceive the world.

I don’t for one moment believe I can do this myself. This is something I will need to rely on help from my Savior.

I’m not going forward blindly, mind you. I’ve overcome things in the past with the help of Jesus Christ–things that were too big for me to tackle alone. I believe He can make something better of me than I can, and I think I’m finally ready to let Him. I don’t imagine for a moment it’s going to be all pleasant, nor is it likely to happen quickly.

But I will say this: It’s not even 24 hours yet and I’m already seeing some baby steps in the right direction. One of my problems is that I tend to fear people. My default setting is to interact with strangers as little as possible, to care only about people I know. This has to change, and I know it.

This morning as I arrived at work I noticed I was going to reach the front door a little ahead of someone else. My first instinct, as usual, was to avoid eye contact and perhaps even hurry my steps so that I could arrive even quicker at the door and perhaps get through it and into the building without having to interact.

But something reminded me I’m trying to care about others more, to not be intimidated by other children of God. I slowed my pace a little. I opened the door for him, and wished him a cheery good morning. He seemed a little surprised by it, but I took a little satisfaction at the prospect that I might have brightened his morning just a little.

It’s a baby step, but it’s in the right direction. The trick is to keep it up. Daily living is the enemy of change. I’m feeling pretty good right now. As one of our hymns says, “There is sunshine in my soul today.” The trick will be to sustain this effort long enough to reach my goal. I don’t for a moment imagine it will be easy. But that’s one reason why I’m writing this post. I’m driving my stake in the ground and declaring my goal openly in the hope that being openly committed will help keep me going.

There’s also a second ray of hope. I had an entirely different blog post already queued up for today. But as I reviewed it this morning I realized it was not coming from the me I want to be. The me I have in mind is not cynical and negative. That post was. It’s now in the bit-bucket, and this one is going up in its place.

I haven’t had a Monday morning this good in quite a while.