Ebbs And Flows

While sitting in sacrament meeting the other day I was looking at our unremarkable attendance in the branch. The thought came startingly to my mind that I've actually been there for three years now. I just hit that mark. I really can't believe it. I've never been in a ward/branch for that long.

My first thoughts drifted to the inception of the branch and just how many people we had attending back then - it was probably around 120 or so. Now it's about half that, and has been holding steady there for about a year and a half. Back when things started, I could have never imagined the branch being so small, and now the converse is true. Then I started thinking about how this is probably just a phase and it's just a matter of time before things pick up again.

From that point, I began to drift off and think about how ebbs and flows are common in probably all areas of our life. Spiritually speaking I can point to many times in my life where there have been some very definite peaks and valleys. In my personal life last year - I think April through August - was a valley so to speak. At the same time, however, I feel like I experienced a corresponding peak in my spirituality. None of the things that happened at that time ever could have been things that I would have categorized as desirable, or could have even expected, but they gave me an increased capacity to learn to cope, and then to thrive. I emerged with my faith intact, and never have I felt so capable to confront life head on. It's a wonderful feeling of empowerment to feel like I am master of my own creature, that I have complete dominion and autonomy over not just my own personal appetites, but my own capacity to adapt internally to all circumstances, even the external events that I have no control over.

More recently I feel like I might have plateaued in some areas of my life, but I've felt an upswing with renewed commitment to simple things - exercise & diet, personal worship, etc. I love health and fitness because it's something that's pretty easy to measure. Something that's interesting about social psychological research is that when rating levels of happiness one thing that researchers commonly ask about is how often a person exercises in a given amount of time. The reason being that engaging in physical activity is an objective measure to subjective states, i.e. people who exercise regularly report higher rates of overall well-being. But the personal worship items - scripture study, prayer, church attendance, etc. - pays huge dividends also.

The ebbs and flows that we experience are common. When I had these thoughts Matthew Arnold's Dover Beach actually came to mind.

The sea is calm tonight,
The tide is full, the moon lies fair
Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
Come to the window, sweet is the night air!

Only, from the long line of spray
Where the sea meets the moon-blanched land,
Listen! you hear the grating roar
Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
At their return, up the high strand,
Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
The eternal note of sadness in.

Sophocles long ago
Heard it on the Agean, and it brought
Into his mind the turbid ebb and flow
Of human misery; we
Find also in the sound a thought,
Hearing it by this distant northern sea.
The Sea of Faith
Was once, too, at the full, and round earth's shore
Lay like the folds of a bright girdle furled.
But now I only hear
Its melancholy, long, withdrawing roar,
Retreating, to the breath
Of the night wind, down the vast edges drear
And naked shingles of the world.

Ah, love, let us be true
To one another! for the world, which seems
To lie before us like a land of dreams,
So various, so beautiful, so new,
Hath really neither joy, nor love, nor light,
Nor certitude, nor peace, nor help for pain;
And we are here as on a darkling plain
Swept with confused alarms of struggle and flight,
Where ignorant armies clash by night.

It is a somber poem, but I think really captures that feeling of ebbs and flows that can occur. His message is a little different than what I would prefer to share. In a fireside that I attended over the summer, the Brother Millet read aloud John 3:8:

The wind bloweth where it listeth, and thou hearest the sound thereof, but
canst not tell whence it cometh, and whither it goeth: so is every one that is
born of the Spirit.

Then he explained that the Lord is obviously not talking about wind patterns. In the original Hebrew we find that "wind" is better translated as the spirit. He further expounded that there are definite times in our lives when we will feel greater communion with the spirit than others. It isn't necessarily because we are living poorly, or are otherwise flouting gospel principles. The ebbs and flows that we experience with the spirit sometimes is just simply a matter of Heavenly Father allowing us to walk on our own at some points in our life.

I think if you look at it from the perspective of a loving parent, all a mother or father wants is for a child to grow up to be self-sufficient, and contribute to the lives of those around him/her. I think that as God removes those training wheels and we have to begin riding on our own, He expects us to hearken to those times when He gently guided us. That is why, for example, that I suspect in the Doctrine & Covenants, Oliver is reminded of the time when he undoubtedly felt His warm over him (D&C 6:23) and not just given another booming response.

I just think it's a pattern that reoccurs throughout our lives. It doesn't seem like there will ever be a point where we can sit back and rest because there just always seems to be so much upheaval, in one form or another. The concept of time and its measurement is a testament to me of God's acknowledgement of this concept. We have a new year every 365 days, 12 months a year, and seven days a week to try and recommit ourselves to living the best we can. It happens over and over, and it's for good reason: we need every opportunity we can get to right our ships and learn to navigate the ebbs and flows that beset us in the seas we live in.

Those are just some thoughts I had in sacrament meeting last Sunday.