The Learning Pattern of Acting

Learning by study and also by faith. Real learning is an act of both the body and the mind. In fact, while we mostly associate knowledge with the mind, it is usually best produced by the use of our bodies. The use of the body shapes the mind and prepares it to receive and retain light and knowledge. Preparation and application are the keys to gaining light and truth.

I have been pondering how important it is to identify specific actions that I can do in order to act on what I know. I have realized that so much of the power of my scripture study is lost when I fail to convert it into action that changes me. For example, I might say after studying my scriptures that I will be more kind. While I might say I have set a goal to act, all I have done is made a wish about how to react because I'm too lazy to or don't know how to make a commitment to act. If the goal is to bind ourselves to act, then I must have something real to bind myself to. How do I bind myself to act "more kindly?" There is nothing concrete to anchor my commitment to, it is a wish about how I will react. So how do I turn a wishful reaction into a concrete action? I must seek inspiration to specify my goal. For example, to whom will I be more kind? When? And how? What will I do? If I can answer these questions then I am much closer to a true action. 

I have found that the Lord has provided a perfect learning laboratory in which I can constantly practice my gospel actions. It is called the family. This is the ideal place to apply gospel principles. Almost always when I ask the questions "to whom will I be kinder?" "When will I be kinder to them?" And "what will I do to show more kindness?" The first answer that comes to mind relates to my family. For me, usually my wife. 

I think this pattern of acting to become what I am learning is really essential to my growth. For example tonight I attended a fireside in which President Brown spoke about family history. I left feeling that I should do better at family history. But I did not set a goal. I simply said, I will do better. When will I do better? How will I do better? What specifically could I do to be better? I realized that I rarely set real goals based on what I've learned. Most of my goals are actually wishes. I am not binding myself to act in holiness, I am wishing I was better at reacting in all holiness. I think that this approach requires that I recognize two objectives that lead to change. Knowing which one I am struggling with will show me what path to take towards improvement. 

The first objective is the formation of a habit. For many of my problem habits and behaviors, the solution is to develop a counter-habit. Good habits are an effort to tame the natural man, to reign him in. This is the value of a check yes or no approach to obedience. It provides a natural man incentive to defeat the natural man. The other objective is to make our habits holy, or to translate them to a higher plane. At this point I am not as focused on reigning in the natural man as I am on developing the strength of the spiritual man. This is where I move beyond the yes or no box into the realm of good better best. 

I must evaluate whether my struggle is one with bridling the natural man or of strengthening the Spiritual man. Obviously these two objectives are intertwined and affect each other. They are not separate, but by noticing the nature of my goal I can prescribe the appropriate remedy. For example, my goal is to be better at doing family history. Right now I believe my greatest resistance to that goal is in my natural tendency to procrastinate and be lazy. I tend to be lazy in the mental effort it takes to prioritize my time and to be lazy in the effort it takes to actually do the work. I believe I have a testimony of family history and temple work but it has reached it's highest potential growth based on the action I have put into it. My next course of action is to bridle the natural man. So I will set a specific goal to at least log in to my family search account once a day. This one small action may seem insignificant, but to be honest, it is much more than I am doing currently. And ironically the reason I am doing so little now is that I feel there is far too much to do! When I have mastered my natural man to the point that logging on once a day is not difficult at all, I may choose to increase the level of effort to looking up an ancestor at least 5 generations back. That's all! 

I might see a goal like this and think it is useless because it accomplished nothing. But to be honest, while my goal is the taming of my natural man, I will be doing more than many are doing and infinity times more than I was doing before. Following this pattern I continue to bridle the natural man. In the mean time, I am attending my meetings, studying my scriptures, saying my prayers and strengthening my spiritual man. So I am working in both directions although my focus at this point is on the habit. 

As another example, I am currently in the habit of praying, reading, and writing in my journal every day. Those actions are second nature now and require little thought and usually much less willpower to at least do. So my goal with these is not as much to develop a habit as it is to strengthen the Spirit and improve the habit. This will lead to different goals and more experimentation with better methods. For example, because I do not need to worry about whether or not I will be saying my morning prayers today, I can set goals and try methods to improve them. Like pondering what questions I could ask the Lord to make my prayers more effective. Or how might kneeling upright, or speaking aloud or praying in a different location change my experience? What could I do to get myself into the proper mindset and the right attitude to have a meaningful conversation with God? What could I study in the scriptures to strengthen my understanding of how prayer works? These are all avenues I can explore to improve my prayers, which are now habitually ingrained. If I fall out of a habit, I start back at the place were I need to to redevelop it.

It is important to remember that we do not need to run faster than we have strength because this is one of the most tempting things for us to do and one of the most common reasons we fail to change.

When I first started running, I found a lot of excitement in seeing my fitness progress. Too soon I started focusing on beating my run times and running started to become something I dreaded. I stopped feeling a desire to go because I was too worried about beating my time. When I realized this I decided that instead of focusing on how fast I ran, I would just focus on enjoying developing the habit. I would work first on subduing the natural man until running itself was no longer daunting. I stopped timing each mile and focused instead on pushing myself at a slightly uncomfortable pace for a certain period of time. It wasn't about minutes per mile anymore it was just about minutes. Once I made this commitment, running became fun again and I started to feel less dread about going. My focus had changed because I realized that my natural man needed to be subdued before he could be chiseled.

Possible scriptures:

John 7:17

Ether 12:6, 12, 18

D&C 43:8-9

Memories that Move Us

As Alma preaches to a falling people, he first reminds them of the captivity and struggles of their fathers. I find his questions interesting. "Have you sufficiently retained in remembrance?" Why did he ask that question instead of "do you remember?" How much remembrance must we retain in order for it to be sufficient? I think sufficient remembrance is enough to change your behavior. You have sufficient memory when memory moves you. 

In the way Alma is teaching it, memory is not something you have, it is a faith filled action. It is something you work to develop. I don't simply remember things, I seek to remember and I choose what to remember. My mind and my memory are shaped by the choices I make. 

This again comes back to agency. Memory is not thrust on us, especially a memory of righteous things. We work to create that memory and expand it. We shape it. We plant and nourish and reap the garden of the heart.

So is memory based in the mind or in the heart? I'm guessing both. The facts are stored in the mind but the emotional connection is stored in the heart. So in order to have a memory that changes me, I need to choose to take an experience from the realm of facts to the realm of feelings. The Spirit can do this for me. It can create an emotional charge to my memories that leaves an impression on my heart so that a memory now has emotive power. I read today that the word emotion means to move to action. It is emotion that moves us, not fact.

This also makes me think that sufficient isn't actually in reference to an amount of remembering but of a type, location and depth of memory. A memory that is sufficient to change me is one that is charged with feeling. It is emotive, meaning it moves me or puts me in motion. This means that a memory has sunk deeper into my soul than the thinking brain. It has sunk down into the heart. At this point gospel knowledge becomes gospel fuel that motivates-it is emotive. 

While Enos hunted in the woods he said that the words which he had often heard his father speak sank deep into his heart. I like the idea of his memories "sinking in" because there is not really a better way to describe the process of a thought or word slowly moving from the mind to the heart. This is the movement from knowledge to understanding. Every memory has two parts then, the facts and the feelings.

For Enos, the gospel which he had always known was sinking to a different location. This leads to my other thought about how to get a thought or memory from knowledge to feeling. I think it's another way to interpret Alma's question "have you sufficiently retained in remembrance?" I picture a chamber in the thinking brain labeled memory. I also picture that it has a sandy base into which thoughts can slowly sink. Whatever thought or memory is in this chamber represents what I am currently thinking about. When Alma says to retain certain events in remembrance sufficiently, I picture this thought or memory being allowed to remain in the chamber of thought long enough that it begins to sink. Distraction means I pull the thought back to the surface and momentarily replace it with another. When I return to the thought I must start afresh to let it sink in again. This is why distraction is so dangerous. It is also why pondering is one of the most powerful tools of learning. It is retaining a particular thought in remembrance with focused effort long enough to allow a thought to sink.

This describes well the experience of Joseph Smith. 

"Never did any passage of scripture come with more power to the heart of man than this did at this time to mine. It seemed to enter with great force into every feeling of my heart. I reflected on it again and again, knowing that if any person needed wisdom from God, I did; for how to act I did not know, and unless I could get more wisdom than I then had, I would never know; for the teachers of religion of the different sects understood the same passages of scripture so differently as to destroy all confidence in settling the question by an appeal to the Bible.

At length I came to the conclusion that I must either remain in darkness and confusion, or else I must do as James directs, that is, ask of God. I at length came to the determination to “ask of God,” concluding that if he gave wisdom to them that lacked wisdom, and would give liberally, and not upbraid, I might venture."

It was only after lengthy reflection and continually retaining this thought in remembrance that Joseph came to the conclusion to act on it.

I think I need to work on not only remembering things, but retaining them in remembrance until things (factual) become fuel (emotive). I will need to develop greater self discipline to keep distractions from uprooting my sinking memory.

Teaching moment: While baking a meal or treat, point out that in order for the ingredients to become what they're supposed to be, they must be allowed time to be changed by steady and constant heat. Putting the pan in the oven for 2 minutes 30 times does not have the same effect as baking it for 60 minutes. Discuss how the mind is like an oven and the importance of pondering and retaining inspired words and thoughts in remembrance. Discuss how distraction is like switching pans in and out of the mind and can prevent us from growing or being changed.

Possible ideas to teach: scriptures, study, church, faith, the Holy Ghost, pondering, repentance, change, testimony, learning, memory, habits, goals, change

Possible Scripture References:

Enos 1:1-8

JSH 1:8-14

2 Nephi 4:15-16

Deuteronomy 4:9

D&C 138:1-11

D&C 76:15-20

1 Samuel 3:1-10

3 Nephi 11:1-7