The rate of Change

Humans can change. That I acknowledge as fact. It does lead me to wonder though, is there a rate for this change? Is there a limit to how fast we can change, how fast we can become a new or different person? It is said that a man can't change overnight implying that change cannot be instantaneous. Is that true? What about a moment's decision that can change our entire life? Does this not qualify as instantaneous change? If we say that change is not instantaneous can we then set a minimum amount of time that is required in order for a person to change? If we cannot, then how can we rule out the possibility of instantaneous change? What do you think? Is it possible for a person to change in a moment or does it take longer than this? How long?

The Best

So question: When you think of "the best of something" what do you think of? What makes it "the best". This was prompted by the term, "best of books" but I also thought of many other bests while trying to answer this question for myself; best friend, best song, best man, best place, best day.  I came up with the following criteria:
1: High quality- Something that stands out amongst others of its kind in terms of accomplishing its function.
2: Stirring/Inspiring- something that resonates with our soul and makes us think, feel, or act in a way that is improved from how we were before we came across it.
3: Support-something that offers us support and encourgment. A feeling of warmth or of being at home.

Can you think of any other criteria for the "best" of something? What do you think the "best of books" means when referred to in addition to the scriptures ( or in other words they are books other than the scriptures).

Love Mercy

Brother Norton shared this scripture with us in institute last wednesday-

Micah 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

So what does it mean to love when put in the context of loving a trait, attribute, or virtue? Someone in institute said that maybe to love mercy is to be grateful for mercy so then is being grateful for a virtue all that is required to be said to "love" the virtue? I thought perhaps it is like when you love an item or an action such as loving to whistle.When you love to do something you enjoy it and you want to do it a lot. So following that train of thought if I love mercy than I want it to be put in action a lot, both on my behalf and on the behalf of others. I would say that loving mercy is not only being willing but eager to find forgivness and to extend it to others. It means to be eager to extend the hand of help to those who need it, to lift up the hands that hang down, and to strengthen feeble knees. But for that matter, what exactly is mercy? Is it forgivness or charity? But then why does it need a spereate word? Is it possible to love a virtue you do not understand completely like it is to love a person you do not completely understand? How do we learn to love mercy? How to we improve our love and understand of it or any other virtue? Any thoughts?

Names

Why are names so important? Why is it that we feel the need to know the names of others or to have them know ours? Romeo would have us believe perhaps that they are not all that important after all " that which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet" ( not an exact quote but I think I got the general gist of what he says). Yet often when another does not know our name we feel snubbed or unwanted. If we forget anothers' name we feel embarrassed or ashamed. Why is that? Do our names define us? Any thoughts?

Love

Today in Sacrament meeting I was pondering what it means to love, what is love and why do we love? The Bishop said in a recent conversation I had with him that we love others because of what they have done for us, that I love my mom because of what she has done for me. I do not mean to say he is wrong, I believe that that is a part of what love is but I think that it is just a surface glance of what love is. So then what is love? I thought that if I could not answer this question, at least in part, then I cannot say why I love anyone, why they love me, or why God loves everyone. I thought about this for a long time, if we only love because of what someone has done or will do for us then God wouldn’t love any of us. and we wouldn’t love those who commit crimes or who wrong us. This couldn’t be right. The purest of love transcends this definition of love. But there did seem to be a nugget of truth within this statement. After all most of the time that we love it is people we get along well with. Curiously enough I thought of the saying “misery loves company” to come up with the beginning of my definition of love. I thought that maybe this is also true of love, maybe it is it’s very essence. After all if God is love and His purpose is to bring to pass the immortality and eternal life of man, than loves purpose is to bring more people to it. So I think that love is that light/goodness that calls to the light/goodness in others. It seeks after the potential growth of that light/goodness in others, however minuscule that light may be at the moment. As long as we can sense so much as a hope or potential or possibility of that light we will love them because the light in us reaches out to that potential. Since everyone has at least a hope of that light somewhere within the recesses of their soul this makes it possible for God who is light/goodness incarnate to love them. I think the greater the light we have the easier it is to find traces of the light in others and as long as we can find it in others we can build it so that both our light and their grows. I think then that service is the tool which we use to reach out to that light in others, to build it, strengthen it, foster its growth and encourage it. Another thought, perhaps this is why the Lord cautions us so much against judging other, because when we judge others we blind ourselves to the light that is in them and focus only on the darkness. Nothing could be so tragic because it cuts both ways, by judging you are hurting your own potential growth as much as if not more than you are hurting the other person. We would never physically blind ourselves on purpose so why do we do it so frequently spiritually?