Sunday Soapbox

Web courtesy of this site.

Mick and I were asked to give a talk in Sacrament meeting for church this afternoon. Apparently our voices had not been heard at the pulpit in several years, and we were due. The subject- Pride. How appropriate considering pride is multifaceted and is something I know I struggle with, much like everyone else.

Mick did wonderful, even considering he had to give a completely different lesson to the Young Men just a short two hours prior. He's amazing. I could not, I repeat- COULD NOT prepare for two speaking events that would take place on the same day. Maybe a mission teaches you such tricks?

Of course Mick had record attendance in his youth class, and the chapel seemed super full as we spoke. Despite teaching gospel doctrine every other week, and getting up in front of people for various things, I was super nervous to deliver today. With that said, thank goodness this latest assignment is done, and I think it will be a few years before we are invited to speak again.

Here's my talk- in a nutshell.

President Benson said: "Pride affects all of us at various times and in various degrees". Elder Uchtdorf added that “Every mortal has at least a casual if not intimate relationship with the sin of pride. No one has avoided it; few overcome it.” In fact, Elder Uchtdorf went on to say, in his address entitled "Pride and the Priesthood", given at the most recent priesthood session of conference, that, and I quote “When I told my wife that this would be the topic of my talk, she smiled and said, “It is so good that you talk about things you know so much about.” Brothers and sisters, if an apostle has need to recognize Pride in his life and to speak and act about it, so do we.

But what is Pride? We know that all of us have pride in some shape or fashion. It might appear different, but at its root, pride is pride. Elder Uchtdorf went on to remind us that “there is a difference between being proud of certain things and being prideful”. Being proud of your children, your spouse, holding the priesthood of God, proud of the chance to be baptized, Being proud to be a grandparent, these claims are not being prideful. He also addressed that we must not be self demonizing in order to be prideless. 

So what is being prideful or having pride? It's an easy enough question. President Ezra Taft Benson said "the central feature of pride is enmity—enmity toward God and enmity toward our fellowmen". Enmity means we have hatred toward, hostility to, or are in a state of opposition against. You may picture pride as that of self-centeredness, conceit, boastfulness, arrogance or haughtiness, comparison, self elevation, self glorification, demonetization of others, and contention, but President Benson tells us Enmity is at the core of pride, enmity is its center.

In thinking about pride the thought of a spider web entered my mind. A web of pride is something we can easily build upon and get caught up in if it's building process goes unnoticed. We may even take on the position of the spider that lies in waiting on a web we make ourselves.You may have zero tolerance for spiders, such as myself, but I admit their webs have always held my fascination. How do spiders do create their web? How does such a tiny creature construct such an intricate, ornate, large, treacherous, and deadly trap?

There are three simple forms of web that spiders can create: The sheet web, the Orb web and the spatial web. The most well known design is the Orb web, or the one you might be more familiar with visualizing as Spider Mans web, or the traditional Halloween web you place in the eaves of your porches. There are seven known glands that can be located in a spider's abdomen. Each spider posses only some of these glands, but never seven all together. Glands produce a silken thread for a special purpose such as, silk of the walking thread as the spider moves about constructing it's own web, attachment threads, threads for encapsulating prey, thread for cocoons and threads that produce adhesiveness and stickiness. Spiders also contain approximately three spinners, sometimes four, which help to form and weave the construction of each thread of a web.

But here's the interesting part- Still with whatever assets as far as the amount and type of glands or spinners each spider possesses, the most critical and difficult part for a spider in making its web lies in the placement of the first initial thread. The first thread of the orb design is intended to be a sturdy horizontal thread which the rest of the web hangs upon. Think about it. How does a spider connect between her first two points? She cannot fly. She has no special powers above that of web making. Does she continue walking with a long thread behind her in hopes of connecting her to the other side where she can pull her thread taught and attach it? No, the answer is simple. She allows the use of an outside source, some wind. With wind, and a little luck, the spider releases a thin adhesive thread from her spinners that is made longer and longer while she waits for it to stick to a proper spot. When it does stick, she then walks carefully over the thread, strengthening it with a second thread. This is repeated until the primary thread is strong enough to bare the weight of the entire web.

After this, the spider hangs a thread in the form of a Y below the primary thread. This Y forms the first three radials of the web. More radials are constructed taking care that the distance between each radial is small enough to cross onto the next. Then, non-sticky circular construction spirals are made. Crossing over and attaching to each radial thread. The web is completed when the adhesive spiral threads are placed and the spider consumes the non-sticky spirals threads and replaces them with sticky threads. She then lies in wait with a full belly, assuming that her web will become a deadly place for her next prey. 

Webs are incredible and very strong. Thin threads are capable of stopping a bee flying at full speed and all through bees are small, agile and their speed is quick a sticky web becomes a deadly place for them. Spider thread is not only strong but also very elastic and can be stretched 30 - 40%, almost 20 times it's original size, before it is compelled to break. Unlike the spider webs made in the corners of our house walls or sheds, which collect dust and become easily recognizable to the human eye, we are unable to see a .15 micrometer single thread of spider web unless with the reflection of sunlight upon its silken exterior.

Being difficult to see the outcome of how pride effects our relationship with God and our fellow men, we don't always notice or acknowledge when pride takes root and we begin to build our web with the first initial thread. Unfortunately, all it takes for us to spin a web of pride is to simply try it out to toss our thread out to the wind or to Satan and it will stick. We simply believe that no one will see it, or be affected by it. In so doing, we accept Satan's' ploy of no consequences for our actions, and put a prideful action out to God, or out to our fellowmen in order to gratify ourselves either by making us feel better, right or more knowledgeable. And if repeated again and again making our initial thread stronger, we create a fierce opposition to God, and a stronger hostility or hatred toward Him and our fellow men, thread by thread.

We may even begin to place the not so noticeable, or non-sticky spiral threads that increase our web size. For example, we begrudgingly accept and do our church callings, we begrudgingly help someone less off, then ourselves when asked, instead of having love, sympathy and an understanding heart amid our service. Possibly with a glance, we silently demean others appearance- their lack of proper hair, clothing or substance or even their excessive blessings of material substance. Why do they have that tattoo? They do not need a Hummer, I need a Hummer. We pridefully judge people's life choices, their parenting skills and deem ourselves as better.

If these shiny non-sticky threads, however small they might be, are not seen and recognized with the spirit, or a glimpse of sunlight to change our hearts, our web has the potential to increase in strength when we replace them with stickier, more deadly threads of pride such as verbally abusing a person about their outlandish style of dress or hair instead of looking on their heart, instead of loving them as God sees them. We might now gossiping about what horrible parents live next door- what they do or don't do- and begin to despise their children because of them. We may begin to hate our neighbor or loved one for needing so much of our time. We may place seeds of jealously about a friends fortunate circumstances or monetary gains and destroy the treasured relationship because of our need to be equal to or above them with something so unimportant in the scheme of our eternal significance, as status or material wealth.

So many prideful actions and thoughts can build our webs and they vary among us. The spider, or us, having hostility toward, hatred to, or being in opposition of- can become the center or driving force behind furthering our prideful web construction. If we allow pride to enter into our daily affairs. We ultimately spin a more treacherous web of pride until we either choose to entangle prey in our web- continuing to rebuild our web and self gratify; or until our web becomes compelled to break, or we are compelled to be humbled based on trials or life experiences, or being asked to give a talk on this very subject.

Elder Uchtdorf warns that we must not inhale the fortunes that come our way. Instead, we need to glorify God in all things in order to not place enmity between us and our father in heaven. We need to accept that all we have is because of him, not ourselves. We must not secretly cheer when misfortune come to others, we must follow the example of God's son, our Savior Jesus Christ, and lift them up with kind words, giving praise, being humble, full of love, empathetic and full charity- lest we be compelled to do so. It is up to us to decide not to be prideful. To decide not to build and strengthen our web. 

In the pre-mortal council, it was pride that destroyed Lucifer, or the son of the morning, as he sought to gain glory for himself. It was Christ who said to God “here I am, send me, and the glory be thine forever”. In remembering these two specific example we can resist building a web of pride that could ultimately destroy us as spiritual sons and daughters of God, and could likely damage our relationships with others.

To quote President Benson as Elder Uchtdorf did in his address:

“We must cleanse the inner vessel by conquering pride". We know that we may never be rid of it, but we can change our prideful state.

We can do this by changing our attitude, by replacing a negative, prideful thought or action with something positive, praise worthy, something good.

“We must yield ‘to the enticing of the Holy Spirit,’ put off the prideful ‘natural man,’ become ‘a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord,’ and become ‘as a child, submissive, meek, humble".

“God will have a humble people. … ‘Blessed are they who humble themselves without being compelled to be humble.’ Let us choose to be humble. We can do it. I know we can.”